


Wands And Roses

by HorizonTheTransient



Category: The Gods Are Bastards - D. D. Webb
Genre: F/F, Gen, Self-Insert
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-19
Updated: 2021-02-01
Packaged: 2021-03-10 23:34:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 17
Words: 30,319
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28175496
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HorizonTheTransient/pseuds/HorizonTheTransient
Comments: 39
Kudos: 28





	1. Chapter 1

"So, Miss Corcoran-" Arachne began.

"Please, call me Rose," I said.

"Let me see if I understand your claims correctly," Arachne said. "You are from another universe, where the story of my life- and the stories of a number of  _ other _ people I happen to know- are all a single work of fiction that you happen to enjoy."

"That would be correct, yes," I said.

Arachne was an elfish woman with blonde hair and ears that pointed upwards, and gold-rimmed glasses on her nose. We were sitting in her office, which was absolutely awash in all sorts of trinkets, some trash and some treasure, with absolutely no rhyme or reason. Given the elfish predilection for immortality, and the adventurer's predilection for refusing to walk away from a fight without  _ some _ kind of trophy, prize, or loot, it was only momentarily a surprise that she had a hoarding problem. If it got any worse, she might start growing wings and a tail, and maybe even breathe fire.

"And because of this fiction you've read, you believe yourself to have deep insights into history  _ and _ the future."

"More or less."

Arachne folded her arms. "Prove it."

"Somewhere around a thousand years ago, after the Convocation of Mount Tira, you and Zanzayed the Blue were accosted by a Salyrite wizard named Laran MacCraigh, who then rediscovered the use of shadow magic to safely wield the Infernal and helped found the Topaz College," I said.

"That's public record," Arachne said. "Ancient history, I'll admit, but still something anyone could look up at the library."

"Not too long after you killed Sorash, the God of Bloodlust and Conquest, a Huntsman of Shaath named Angthinor turned Shaath's divine nature against him to tame the wildgod into a poor man's Sorash, creating the modern tradition of the Huntsmen."

"That's... less public record," Arachne said. "But, any Grove Elder who was paying attention could've told you that."

"You and Sarsamon Tirasian were close friends," I said. "His 'kidnapping' of you was actually a thinly veiled excuse for the two of you to get drunk and cry about lost loves."

"...Alright, I believe you," Arachne said. "The question  _ now _ is, what do I do with you?"

"Teleport with me to the Temple of Vesk to make me his problem?" I suggested, shrugging.

"He's already passed the buck back to me," Arachne muttered, holding up the note she'd found next to me. 'Oops. Love, Vesk,' it read.

"Uh... teleport with me to Sarasio to find Jenny Everywhere? And then go on a merry little romp through the Golden Sea to the center, where there's a big interdimensional portal that can probably send me home."

"Are you really that homesick, or do you just not like me?" Arachne asked.

"I like you from a distance," I said. "No offense, but you have never sounded like anything less than a tremendous pain in the ass to be around."

"Thank you, I try."

"Also, my only marketable skill is working with a complex technology that doesn't exist in this world," I continued.

"That's the sort of problem a college education can fix."

"No thank you, I'm twenty two years old and I already have one. I don't need another."

"Tell me, what  _ else _ are you going to do, hm?" Arachne asked, steepling her fingers. "What other options do you have?"

"...Goddamnit."

"I'm glad we could come to an agreement," Arachne said. "Quite frankly, you simply cannot be allowed to wander around unsupervised."

"Why the hell not?"

"Young lady, your combination of being from another world and knowing things about  _ this _ world that you shouldn't is a dangerous combination that can and will get a lot of people killed if you're allowed to run off to Veilgrad and get the secrets tortured out of you by a vampire."

"Malivette would  _ never _ do such a thing," I said, affronted.

_ "And, _ if you attend the University, I'll be able to get my alchemist to treat your..." Arachne tried and failed to think of a polite way to put it. "Gender problem."

"Only if that means I get a potion that'll make my facial hair fall out and never grow back," I said.

"That and more."

I sighed. "Alright, fine. Lead the way."

\---

As it turned out, I would not be discussing the sensitive subject of my penis with Admestus Rafe, the aforementioned alchemist, and would instead be explaining myself to the university's... I was going to say nurse, because most schools don't have doctors, but  _ also, _ this is the University of Last Rock, which has an incredibly dangerous student body and also a very powerful and presumably wealthy ancient archmage that could afford an actual doctor if she wanted.

Anyway, I talked it over with Miss Sunrunner, the university's on-site medical professional who was, as far as I could tell, a shaman. She was very polite and professional about the whole thing, and I'm honestly not sure if I would've preferred this or making dick puns with Rafe.

"Is that everything?" Miss Sunrunner asked, looking up from her notepad. I was getting more than just hormones; apparently Rafe was also capable of brewing potions to cure nearsightedness and astigmatism.

"There's the question of whether or not I'm a plague rat full of diseases this world has never seen, and also the question of whether or not this world's diseases, which I've never seen before, are going to kill me in a few days," I said. "I, uh. Have no idea if that's been addressed yet, but-"

"It has," Miss Sunrunner said, nodding. "You arrived unconscious in my infirmary. The first thing I did was a diagnostic spell, followed by purging every bacterium, virus, and fungal spore in the room."

"...You are aware that some of those bacteria and fungi are necessary for human digestion, right?"

"Very," Miss Sunrunner said flatly. On the one hand, fine, questioning her medical knowledge was probably rude. On the other hand, she's an elf, and if I recall correctly, their digestive systems worked entirely differently from humans, and involved magic. "And on that note..." She walked over to the countertop, and picked up a small glass bottle full of a mostly-clear liquid. "Drink this."

She handed me the bottle, and I carefully pried out the black rubber stopper. Trust Admestus Rafe to invent synthetic rubber for his alchemy kit, and then  _ not tell anyone _ about it. I pushed that thought out of my mind, and drank the potion.

"So," I said after swallowing. "What, uh. What  _ was _ that?"

"Probiotics," Miss Sunrunner said. "I administered the general inoculation while you were asleep, but I didn't have the probiotics on hand at the time. Any other questions?"

"Uh... None pertaining to medicine, but a few pertaining to magic," I said.

"You may be better off asking Professor Yornhaldt, but go on."

"I've seen a few shaman who could take on an animal form," I said. "A housecat, a panther, a crow... How difficult is such a thing?"

"It would take several years for an absolute beginner to find an animal spirit to make such a bargain with," Miss Sunrunner said. "For elves, twenty years of practice to find such a spirit is simply how things are. For a human... you may consider that an insurmountable obstacle."

"Just about, yes."

"Then I would suggest picking a more attainable goal," Miss Sunrunner said.

"Is it easier or harder to learn general shapeshifting, within human norms?" I asked.

"That depends on what you mean," Miss Sunrunner said. "If you simply want to look different, glamors are quite easy. If you want to actually mold your flesh like clay, your best bet would be to live to one hundred. Or go to hell and become a Succubus."

"Damnit, why can't magic be convenient and easy?"

"I'll be sure to put that in the suggestion box," she said flatly.

\---

"And this is where you'll be staying until classes begin," Arachne said, leading me up to a small-ish tower that looked like it came straight out of a comic book about a wizard, all bent and crooked with a few impossible side-towers jutting out from the middle, as though it were a tree rather than a carefully-arranged pile of rocks. "You'll be rooming alone, due to campus policy, here in The Lookout."

"...Campus policy?" I asked.

"For all that I like to stay on top of the hottest new trends, co-educational dormitories simply are not an option for me," Arachne said. "With all the powerful and influential and  _ young _ and  _ profoundly irresponsible _ people I play host to, I simply cannot allow for unexpected pregnancies to happen."

"I won't say I'm happy about the implication that I don't count as a woman, but I do see your logic, and also am not used to sharing a room, so I don't think complaining is going to accomplish much," I said. "...Hey, how far away  _ is _ the start of the semester?"

"Three months. Summer break just started yesterday."

"Hang on, what the hell am I supposed to do for three months?"

"What am I, your mother?" Arachne asked. "Find some way to entertain yourself."

"Could you at least throw me at Salyrene's Tower?" I asked. "I have a grand total of, like, zero useful skills in this world, and I've been led to believe that you can learn a little bit of every school of magic from the Tower."

"That's..." Arachne trailed off, tapping her chin. "...Actually not a terrible idea. It'll take some doing, though, and I have other work that needs doing."

"Mm, fair."

"Find a way to occupy yourself for an hour or two," Arachne said. "Wait for Admestus to finish your potion."

"I'm still mad that Miss Sunrunner disagreed with my design philosophy," I said.

"...In what regard?"

"Well, since it's Rafe, if I ask for a potion that'll give me boobs, the only question  _ he _ needs to ask is how big," I began. "And with the expectation that they would have to be adjusted a few times to dial in the optimal size for my preferences, I shared a design mantra for fine-tuning a variable to its ideal point: 'show me too much.'"

"Taowi  _ is _ a bit of a spoilsport, yes," Arachne agreed, nodding. "But this time, I'm going to have to agree with her. You do  _ not _ want to walk around with a pair of pumpkins hanging from your neck, even for only a few days to see what it feels like."

"You don't know that for sure," I said, folding my arms.

Arachne rolled her eyes. "Yes, yes, you're very oppressed, receiving some of the best medical care in the world and the personal attention of two powerful elven mages with better things they could be doing."

"I'm glad we see eye to eye on this."

"Now if you'll excuse me,  _ some _ of us have work to do." Arachne disappeared in... a complete lack of special effects. A sign of great skill, but also very lame and unflashy.

I glanced around at the tower and the barren campus.

"...The hell am I supposed to do for an hour?" I asked the empty air.


	2. Chapter 2

"-a  _ far _ better match for her, they at least have  _ some _ alchemy," Janis continued.

Janis Van Richter was the house mother of Clarke Tower, and a thirty-something woman of great warmth, enthusiasm, and volume, both physiological and auditory. She was also, I was learning, very enthusiastic about her romance novels.

"It's either hilarious or horrifying how many married women there are writing these who don't seem to know what good romance looks like," I said, shaking my head.

The two of us were sitting around on the terrace just outside Clarke Tower, which I was not allowed into; I'd had to knock on the door a few times to get her attention, which was especially annoying because she'd simply said "come in" at first, failing to realize I literally couldn't.

"Thankfully, the Izarites have started publishing their own romance novels, a few years ago," Janis said. "Oh, there were Izarite romance novels  _ before _ then, but now it's an official, concerted effort."

"I wonder how the Veskers feel about Izarites muscling into their territory," I said. "I don't doubt the Izarite prerogative to love, but love  _ stories, _ especially the production and distribution thereof, feels much more Vesker to me."

"Oh, I wouldn't know about the internal politics," Janis said. "If there's friction between the cults, well, that's what the Church is for."

"Fair enough," I said. "Although I can't help but feel like Veskers especially have  _ never _ had a grievance they didn't  _ immediately _ air as publicly as possible. I'm not speaking from experience or anything, they just give me that impression, see."

We'd been talking for two hours, and in that time, Rafe had put in a brief appearance to deliver my potion, attempt to steal the spotlight with his swaggering horseshit, been discouraged by the fact we were busy talking about the flaws of the drums-and-trumpets model of military history, and then left after five minutes. Also in that time, I stopped wearing my glasses, my facial hair fell out, and after I'd finished brushing them off of my shirt, I'd noticed a thin layer of padding had grown on my chest that could, if I was shirtless and looking closely, be mistaken for boobs.

Definitely asking for another potion later.

"They do, don't they?" Janis said, smiling behind her teacup. We'd had an argument about tea earlier, in which I practiced having a conversation with someone without making it all about how I'm from another dimension. Thankfully, the University of Last Rock was a fucking weird place full of fucking weird people, and played host to all sorts of foreign cultures, a surprising number of which could be honestly described as living under a rock.

"So-" I began, before suddenly I was inside again, standing behind Arachne and watching a portal open. "...Well hello there."

"Through there is Salyrene's tower," Arachne said. "Any questions?"

"Can the talking sword actually hurt me, or is he just limited to cutting remarks?" I asked.

"He can't move on his own, no," Arachne said. "Now, remember, you won't starve to death or need the bathroom while you're in there, but you also won't be able to rest until you've reached the top. It  _ should _ only take you a few days to finish, but if it doesn't, I'm going in there to pull you out if you're not done by the start of the semester, whether you want to leave or not."

"Fair enough," I said with a shrug. "And... Thank you."

"You're welcome. Now hurry up, this thing won't stay open forever."

* * *

Salyrene's Tower was a highly magical obstacle course for adventurers, that existed outside normal space in its own dimension, created by Salyrene, the Goddess of Magic. Salyrene herself had withdrawn a hundred years ago, leaving the tower to run on its own. There were no more rewards, no more loot. It was just a self-managing obstacle course that tested you to the degree it thought you were capable of, and no more.

A self-managing obstacle course that I had some reason to believe could teach me the basic "Salyrite Apprentice" package of spells, a handful from each of the four schools of magic, which would obviously provide me with a pretty good starting point from which to build up a more  _ useful _ amount of magical skill.

Of course... when that had happened, it was with a damaged Dryad, not a normal human.

...This may be a problem.

I ignored that, squaring my shoulders and examining the rotunda I arrived in. The floor had a big Circle of Interaction glyph engraved into it, illustrating the basic theory of how the schools of magic interacted with each other. Y'know, just in case anyone made it into the tower of the Goddess of Magic  _ without _ knowing this incredibly basic magical fact. And at the center of it was a pedestal with a sword stuck into it, encased in crystal.

Around the walls were four doors, one corresponding to each school of magic, and since I'm that kind of nerd, I decided to go for the arcane door first. If I recalled correctly, when the Paladins and Herschel had arrived here, their preliminary arcane test was a Lights Out puzzle.

And, stumbling into the room and ignoring the statue's ramble, I found myself looking at a completely different puzzle, because nothing can be easy in this life. Instead of a Lights Out puzzle, which I was somewhat familiar with and something approaching good at, it was instead one of those goddamned motherfucking sliding tile puzzles, which I had never once in my life successfully solved.

A grid of what looked to be a hundred tiles square, all of it wildly out of order, with one single empty space off in the bottom right corner...

...I was gonna be here a while.

* * *

"If I never see one of those puzzles again, it will be too soon," I murmured, walking out of the arcane room and moving towards the divine room. Thankfully, what awaited me inside was  _ not _ another goddamn sliding tile puzzle.

It was, instead, a block-pushing puzzle. On frictionless ice.

I started crying.

* * *

"It's over," I whispered to myself, leaving the divine room behind. "I never have to solve that particular puzzle again. I can move on with my life."

I entered the Fae room, and instead of a bunch of misplaced woodland critters, I was faced with one of those hacking minigames where you twist pipe sections to get a clear line from start to finish, except that it was once again on a giant fucking 100 by 100 board.

* * *

The infernal room's puzzle had been combat when the Paladins rolled through, and it seemed that the Tower agreed with me that "here's a room full of monsters, go kill them, have fun" was not actually a puzzle, so instead it gave me the Towers of Hanoi with a hundred disks.

This was hell. I had died and gone to game design hell. I had sinned against game design and was now being punished for my hubris by being tormented by shitty, out-of-place puzzles.

* * *

Fun fact about the Towers of Hanoi: it is not really much of a puzzle. It is the sort of thing that every first-year computer science student learns to solve as a side effect of teaching them about recursion because it's that simple and trivial.

It is not hard. It  _ is _ time-consuming. For n number of disks, the optimal solution takes two to the power of n moves, minus one. For 100 disks, it would take me 1,267,650,600,228,229,401,496,703,205,375 moves to solve it.

Yes, I counted. It wasn't like I had anything better to do.

I explained this to the Tower instead of solving the puzzle, including the fact that if it took me one second to make each move, I'd be here past the heat death of the universe, waited a few minutes for a response that didn't come, and gave up, starting to solve the damn thing. Except, by accident, I grabbed the second ring rather than the first, and found... I could lift it.

I blinked a few times.

Then I squatted down, grabbed the fiftieth ring, and lifted the top half off of the tower, setting it on the far post. I then grabbed the eightieth ring, lifting it up and setting that stack on the middle post, transferred the contents of the far post to the middle post, and then finally moved the bottom of the tower. It was the heaviest by far, and I was not particularly in-shape, but fuck it, it's either this or move them one at a time, and  _ fuck that. _

Top fifty to the first post, middle thirty to the third post, and finally top fifty to the third post, completing the tower and heralding a loud explosion from the central chamber.

"I hate this place," I muttered as I walked out of the infernal room and into the rotunda to claim my prize: a talking sword with a bad attitude. I pulled it out of the pedestal, and looked around for the elevator to the next floor. The sword, unfortunately, started talking.

_ "Welcome, adventurer, to the Tower of Salyrene. Here the worthy come to be tried, tested, and if not found wanting, rewarded. I am-" _

"Annoying is what you are," I said, finding the elevator and the slot where the sword would go, not unlike a key. I raked the tip against the surface of the stone until it slipped into the slot, then drove it the rest of the way home. "I don't care about anything you have to say. I know the Tower is closed. I know there's no reward for finishing it. And I know you don't have anything better to be doing, so kindly shut up about 'wasting your time.' I don't care."

The elevator opened up, and I pulled the silent sword out of the slot.

_ "Rude little shit, aren't you," _ Athenos said.  _ "I can almost respect that." _

"That's your lookout," I said, stepping into the elevator. "As long as you pay your respects silently."

The elevator doors closed, and the whole thing began to rise.


	3. Chapter 3

The words "divine shield" were typically used to describe a hardlight bubble surrounding a priest or paladin, used to protect them from harm. However, in most circumstances, such a bubble was overkill that disabled your own offensive options, and any divine caster who had learned to make a shield the hard way was capable of a much more efficient version, that was in fact literally a shield, made of divine light instead of wood or metal.

I poured more power into making a second shield behind my existing one- once it was made, I couldn't add more energy to it, which was a drawback compared to the bubble- as the demon-drake spewed hellfire at me. It was by no means a real dragon; an actual red dragon would've shadow-jumped my skeleton outside my body or done some other inventively, overwhelmingly lethal thing, because a red dragon is an immortal sorcerer of godlike power. A demon-drake, however, was just a cross between a monitor lizard and a grizzly bear with fire breath and wings- although those hung in useless, tattered ribbons on  _ this _ demon-drake.

I gritted my teeth as the hellfire scorched me around the edges, pouring out some more divine magic to heal my wounds. I was still feeling some heat, though, signalling an approaching burnout. If I drew too much more on holy magic, I'd go up like a funeral pyre.

I knew this because it'd happened to me already, and it was only the Tower's fucking  _ respawn mechanic _ that kept it from being final.

Either way, I'd have to finish this soon. Athenos may have been an obnoxious prick, but he was also a sword, and a pretty good sword at that, and augmented by some rudimentary fae magic, he was able to pierce the infernally-reinforced hide of the demon-drake. Once the hellfire abated and the demon-drake had to take a breath, I was already surging forward, bringing Athenos forward and up, fairy fire racing along the blade.

With a burst of arcane magic, I flung myself up into the air above the hell-drake, and with a final, satisfying sound of metal through hide and flesh and bone, I drove the enchanted longsword home, through its upper chest and probably several vital arteries and organs. Steaming-hot infernal ichor sprayed everywhere as it thrashed weakly under me, before it went limp, and began to crumble to dust.

I stepped off the hell-drake's back, and groaned, putting my free hand to the small of my back.

"Fucking hell, am I glad that's over," I said. "I never want to pick up a sword again in my life."

_ "We all want a lot of things," _ Athenos said.  _ "I, for one, never want to deal with another adventurer barging into the Tower uninvited." _

"Yes, yes, you're very grumpy, I don't care," I said, heading for the arena's exit. "Hopefully that was the final boss. I can't imagine that thing would be more than an annoyance for a real adventurer, but for a Salyrite apprentice, that should be about the limit of my ability. Bleh. I'm just grateful the Tower was better designed, after the preliminary puzzles. Very educational. I'd thought it was more about testing than teaching, but apparently when you're a dungeon, the two aren't mutually exclusive."

_ "Well, would you look at that, you're finally right for once," _ Athenos said as I stepped through the door into a loosely-spiralling staircase.  _ "I recognize this staircase; it leads to the exit, and once we're there, I can finally be rid of you." _

"I mean, sure, I was kind of expecting- hoping for, rather- some tutelary puzzles on using all four schools of magic," I continued, ignoring the talking sword as I ascended the stairs, all my aches, pains, and fatigues fading as I did so. "And I got those, initially. I was  _ not _ expecting the lessons on martial arts, but honestly, those were probably a good idea. I mean, sure, Professor Ezzaniel would've taught me those even without these, but it's nice to have a good foundation, and this is honestly the best place to learn that. The  _ dungeon-crawling, _ now,  _ that _ felt a bit gratuitous, but I guess I can't argue with results... but fighting my way through a ruined castle overrun with demons to kill a hell-drake? Now,  _ that _ was excessive."

_ "Practice should be harder than the real thing." _

"Mmn, fair."

I arrived at the top of the tower, and a pedestal much like the very first one at the bottom of the tower stood in the center of the big, circular room. Around it were four smaller pedestals, one for each school of magic, evenly spaced in a Circle of Interaction, and each containing a slot for a collection of themed gems I'd picked up along the way- a ruby(actually probably a topaz but fuck it, I'm calling it a ruby), a sapphire, an emerald, and a citrine. I pulled all four out of my pocket at once, and with a bit of wizardly telekinesis, slotted them all into their places all at once, before approaching the central pedestal.

"This is goodbye, then," I said, raising Athenos and preparing to plunge him in. "As much as you are a  _ royal _ pain in my ass, I must say, we've been through a lot together, and I might actually miss you."

_ "I won't." _

"Asshole." I stuck him into the pedestal, and watched a portal open up on the wall. Time to go home.

* * *

I was spat back out into the ritual casting chamber Arachne had opened her initial portal in, and I found myself bombarded with new sensations. It turns out, when you learn a little bit of every school of magic, including how to detect said magics, and  _ then _ visit the home of a thousand year old elfish archmage who has a hoarding problem, you might get a little bit overwhelmed.

While I closed my eyes and rubbed my temples, the actual door to the chamber opened, and someone walked in.

"Pardon," a man asked, causing me to open my eyes. He was about four feet tall and three feet wide, with a neatly-trimmed beard and a well-tailored three-piece suit, and I found myself realizing that this is what dwarfs looked like in this world. "But... who might you be?"

"Rose Corcoran," I said, squinting. "Newly-minted magician, prospective student of the University, and the poor bitch Arachne Tellwyrn threw at Salyrene's Tower about a day after last semester ended. Uh, on that note. Do you know how many days it is until the start of term?"

"Why would she..." The dwarf trailed off, shaking his head. "Three days until the start of term. Professor Tellwyrn  _ did _ mention you in the note she left for me before she departed, thankfully. Do you need help finding your way back to Clarke Tower, Miss Corcoran?"

"I'm staying in The Lookout, actually, but... I  _ probably _ do need the help," I said, nodding. "She just teleported me straight in here."

"She has an annoying tendency to do that, yes," he said, nodding.

"Also, uh... you wouldn't happen to be Professor Yornhaldt, would you?" I didn't know of any other dwarfs on staff at the university, although there were surely others. Probably.

"I would, yes. Pardon me, my manners seem to have taken leave of me."

"It's alright. Can't imagine having every anti-teleportation ward on the campus start screaming at you out of nowhere was  _ pleasant." _

"It was only one or two of them," Yornhaldt said, waving it off. "This way, if you would? So! Salyrene's Tower, eh? What was  _ that _ like, if you don't mind an old man prying?"

"It was like..." I frowned, following him as he led me out of the ritual chamber. "...Imagine the sort of education that Professor Tellwyrn would give to a personal apprentice, if she didn't believe in conventional pedagogy."

"...My condolences."

"I'm  _ very _ much looking forward to taking a hot bath and a long nap, and doing  _ nothing _ exciting for the next three days. Any suggestions for relaxing things to do with a rudimentary amount of wizardry that needs  _ some _ sort of practice?"

"Hrm..." Professor Yornhaldt stroked his beard. "...Do you, by chance, know how to knit?"

* * *

"-and recently, before I left, my oldest sister started to become a known  _ personality _ among quilting hobbyists," I said. "Her publications were starting to become rather lucrative, in fact."

"Oh, that's lovely," Janis said. "This oldest sister- she was the one who taught you how to sew, correct?"

"And how to crochet," I said, nodding. "I learned to knit on no fewer than three occasions, having forgotten how during each interim. I'd just never had the attention span for it, I'm afraid."

"But now..."

"Now, with magic, I don't  _ need _ such an attention span," I said, nodding and glancing at the floating knitting needles, which were busily spooling out an ordinary-looking pair of socks, one being knit inside the other. "...It's probably unnecessary to knit both socks at once, it's hardly like I'm going to get second sock syndrome when knitting is this easy for me,  _ but..." _

"But, it's something to brag about," Janis said with a smile.

"And lord am I going to need it," I said. "Paladins and ladies and gods know who else... I'm just some girl."

"Some girl who knows how to make socks," Janis corrected me. "I hear the Silver Legions still use footwraps, for logistical reasons. Just something to be aware of."

I thought this over.

"You know, Janis, I think I love you," I said, nodding. "And so will Trissiny, once she learns that it was your idea."

"Always happy to help, dear."


	4. Chapter 4

Of course,  _ Textiles For Wizards _ didn't  _ just _ have spells for knitting socks and sweaters. It  _ also _ had a few spells for weaving, whose material components differed from the knitting spells only in that the required sticks were bigger. With a magical backstrap loom and a  _ lot _ of thread, I was able to produce all the fabric I needed for a new wardrobe.

(Janis had politely informed me that she had the discretionary budget necessary to simply  _ buy _ some clothes for me, especially since I didn't have any that I wasn't already wearing, but I had declined in favor of having some fun with it. I had, however, accepted a pair of leather hiking boots, because I was capable of acknowledging my limits.)

And so it was that by the time I set out for my first day of class, I was wearing a proper blue wizard's robe and hat, with a shiny satin sash around my waist and stars embroidered into the hat.

And then I got to sit in Arachne's classroom alone, because I was the first to show up.

I went about a minute before I got bored and pulled a book and some knitting out of a pouch I'd hung from my sash. Right now, I was  _ very _ eager to figure out how to make my very own Bag of Holding, or otherwise store things extradimensionally, because while the whole "belt festooned with pouches" look was incredibly valid on wizards, it wasn't quite the one I wanted to go for.

I got about halfway through a pair of stockings and a chapter about magic carpets- where 'magic' ranged from 'self-cleaning' to 'flying'- before other people started to show up.

* * *

Trissiny was the first through the door- second, actually, now that she noticed Fross darting over her shoulder- and she was, therefore, the first one to see the wizard sitting at the desk, reading a hefty tome and... knitting? What in the Goddess' name was a wizard doing with knitting needles? Trissiny had been under the impression that wizards were allergic to productive work.

"Oh wow," Teal said as she laid eyes upon the wizard. "They really still make wizards wear that stuff?"

"Nobody's making me do anything," the wizard said in a deep voice, putting in a bookmark. "I mean, what's the goddamn point of being a wizard if you're not going to dress like it? Name's Rose Victoria Corcoran, by the way. I'm in your class, too. I'm just rooming separately due to... unique circumstances."

Rose hadn't stood up yet, but she was the tallest among them by a decent margin, with pale skin, long and curly brown hair, proud features, and a generally slender build, all wrapped up in a traditional blue wizard robe and pointy hat.  _ Without, _ Trissiny couldn't help but notice, the moon-and-stars sigil of Salyrene pinned to either.

"Unique circumstances?" Trissiny asked. "What do you mean by that?"

"In truth, I mean that the reason why I live in The Lookout rather than Clarke Tower is my business and mine alone," Rose said. "You learn that reason when I decide you get to know it, and not any sooner."

"Is it about-" Juniper began.

"I would appreciate it if you kept your speculation to yourself," Rose said loudly. "So, uh, not to put too fine a point on it, but who are you people again?"

Everyone started introducing themselves, and Trissiny took a seat at another one of the desks, mind still picking at the question of why Rose was rooming separately. What even  _ was _ 'The Lookout,' anyhow?

Eventually, the two boys- Toby and... someone else- arrived, followed very shortly thereafter by Professor Tellwyrn.

"Class rule," she announced as she approached her podium. "Anyone not in their seat when I reach mine will be expelled. From a catapult."

* * *

I put my book away once Arachne arrived, but left my knitting spell where it was; it'd probably be faster to just let it run its course than to try and stop it mid-stream, and it wasn't like it required  _ that _ much of my attention. Knitting was a fairly monotonous and repetitive craft, which made it such a good fit for a very simple temporary logic construct created as part of the spell.

However, the fact that the spell didn't really require my attention didn't stop that attention from wandering from the beginning of the lecture. It was a bunch of questions, checking to see who knew what about the world, and also setting the tone for what she expected the class' discourse to look like.

And ordinarily, this would be interesting, because Arachne was not one of those drums-and-trumpets lists-and-dates historians. She taught the art of constructing and understanding historical narratives. It was just that, well, these questions were fairly basic and I'd already read all this shit before.

"Miss Corcoran," Arachne said, snapping me back to reality. "Summarize what is known about demons."

"It depends on who you ask, but just about any serious scholar of demonology will agree that a demon is any living being whose biology involves infernal magic to some significant extent," I said. "The majority of known demon species are native to Hell, which is our world but in another dimension, which gives rise to the misconception that demons are any creature native to Hell.  _ However, _ there are at least three species of demon that challenge that notion: Hethelaxi, who are thought to be descended from a population of humans that adapted to Hell over the years; Vanislaads, undead shapeshifters made from the souls of mortals condemned to Hell by Vidius; and Revenants, demonic undead created on the mortal plane by warlocks from souls not yet taken to be judged by Vidius, and are unambiguously  _ not _ native to Hell in any way, shape, or form.

"Demons are an extremely diverse group that includes plants, fungi, solitary animals, social animals, and sapient creatures. One trait that remains very common, however, is unreasoning, irrational,  _ maladaptive _ aggression, brought on by the side effects of infernal magic. This instinctive, unreasoning aggression has generally given demons something of a poor reputation for their unneighborly behavior, and they find themselves institutionally unwelcome on this plane of existence by literally every authority; not even the Black Wreath wants demons on this plane.

"Despite all that, however, demons keep being summoned by mortal warlocks, because Hell is a terrible place to live, and any demons brought out of it are sufficiently grateful- and pliable to infernal control- to provide useful services. This is usually, although not  _ always, _ a bad idea that will backfire the moment the warlock turns their back."

"Thorough, if narrowly-focused," Arachne said. "Does their Queen  _ really  _ warrant no mention?"

"Elilial, the Goddess of Cunning, is the Queen of Demons in the same sense that Sharidan Tirasian is the emperor of this entire continent. Despite having thousands of years to consolidate power in Hell, she has failed to stomp out  _ all _ of the competing factions in Hell. She rules enough of it for her own purposes, and the rest of it gets to do whatever it wants," I said. "I won't pretend intimate knowledge of demon politics beyond the fact that the Elilinists aren't the only faction in Hell, though. Regarding demons as a bloc rather than individuals, however, yes, Elilial is a major player, being directly responsible for three organized, large-scale invasions of the mortal plane known as the Hellwars. It's my understanding you were present for one of them? Regardless, yes, whatever political entities exist in Hell, none we know of are particularly friendly to the mortal plane."

_ "Much _ better," Arachne said. "In the future, you can safely assume that in this class, we are talking about  _ politics, _ not the finer points of diabolical naturalism. Enough about that. Who has anything to share on the nature of Paladins?"

I drifted off again and found myself wondering when we'd get to the Drow and the Dwarves. I had a number of questions about their subsistence patterns and trade logistics that I felt were not adequately addressed.

"Welcome," Arachne said, "to the Unseen University."

...Oh, shit, did I miss that bit? Fuck. Goddamnit.

“Unseen?” Gabe looked around at the rest of us. “I thought it was just called the University.”

_ “Hand, _ Arquin." Arachne kept talking, but I'd stopped listening. Something about how we're all special and unique and dangerous and it requires a unique approach to teaching, blah blah. I'm half convinced that Arachne just has peculiar opinions about pedagogy, and she picked her student body after the fact on the basis of who's most likely to survive it. "...which brings us to the homework." Oh, right, this one. "You will each have on my desk by tomorrow night a two-page paper, detailing in brief a general tactical analysis of each of your classmates, including strengths and weaknesses, and how you personally expect to be of assistance to them. Miss Corcoran?"

I lowered my hand. "When you say 'tomorrow night,' what's the cutoff point? Before midnight?"

"It is entirely up to you just how far you want to push your luck," Arachne said. "Welcome home, kids. Class dismissed."

* * *

"We're all gonna die," Ruda said, breaking the silence as they walked to their next class.

"Well, sure," Juniper said. "Everything dies, that's just nature. But not... right  _ now. _ Probably."

"She wants us to write essays about each other's weaknesses, as a  _ bonding tactic," _ Teal said. "Does that seem completely ass-backward to anyone else?"

"Yeah, Arachne's weird like that," Rose said. Trissiny was keeping her distance from the wizard for the time being; for Rose to be so intimately knowledgeable with personal, practical details of demonology... There were innocent explanations. Trissiny herself was educated in such matters. But there were also far less innocent explanations, and none of them made Trissiny comfortable, especially with the fact that Rose had to live separate from everywhere else. "She's weirder, even. Pretty sure what she  _ really _ wants us to do is think for ourselves, realize that what she's asking us to do is a bad idea, and then show up to class tomorrow without  _ any _ essays written, and tell her to sit on it and spin." There was also the fact that Rose was  _ now _ knitting what appeared to be the beginnings of a sweater, and getting close to the moving needles and yarn felt like a bad idea.

"What makes you say that?" Toby asked.

"I've met her," Rose said flatly. "More seriously, due to some experiences I'd rather not discuss, I flatter myself to think I've a unique insight into what we're about to go through."

"...Hang on,  _ how _ old are you, again?" Gabe asked.

"Depends on how you count," Rose said. "Either twenty two, or somewhere in the neighborhood of thirty two thousand. Either way, this isn't my first time going to college."

Everyone but Rose stopped in their tracks at that, and she got a few more paces before turning back around, grinning. "Welcome to Last Rock, you little shits. It's gonna get  _ weird." _


	5. Chapter 5

"Are Omnists vegetarians?" Rose asked.

It was shortly after lunch, and the freshmen were outside, waiting for their first martial arts class with Professor Ezzaniel. They'd had Introduction to Magic with Professor Yornhaldt earlier, and Rose had very nearly slept through that class completely, being as she was already a wizard.

"Yes... except no," Toby said. "It's... complicated."

"Well, hell, I've got time."

"Omnu is a god of Agriculture,  _ but, _ Agriculture  _ does _ include ranching, herding, and generally keeping livestock," Toby said. "We don't have any proscriptions against  _ eating _ meat, as such, but we  _ do _ have proscriptions against  _ wasting food, _ which means we only raise animals for meat in certain environments, where the land is better suited for it, and unsuited for more traditional plant farming."

"So an Omnist in the Tira Valley probably wouldn't eat much meat, but here in the Great Plains, where cattle roam..."

"I am going to eat  _ so much _ steak," Toby said, nodding.

"Wait, what do you mean, unsuited for plant farming?" Juniper asked. "You can't raise animals where there's no plants."

"Of course," Toby said. "But there's a difference between a place where any plants grow, and a place where plants humans can eat grow. And that difference is a little rain and a lot of grass. Humans can't eat grass, after all."

"But, wheat-"

"We eat the seeds, not the grass."

"Ooooooh."

"Oh, hey, on another note," Rose said, turning to face Trissiny. "Triss, you know how to identify different kinds of demon, right? I fought one during my training this summer, and have no idea what the hell it was."

Trissiny cocked her head in confusion. Wasn't Rose supposed to be a diabolist? Or was she, in fact, really just a wizard who knew a bit of diabolical theory?

"I do," Trissiny said. "What was it like?"

"What the hell kind of training were  _ you _ doing that had you fighting a demon?" Ruda asked.

"The intensive kind," Rose said, waving dismissively. "Anyhow, it was  _ kinda _ like a dragon, except it wasn't an immortal shapeshifting sorcerer of godlike power. So really it was nothing like a dragon. It was just a monitor lizard the size of a grizzly bear, with wings and hellfire breath. It wasn't that tough, either; I'm no paladin, and I managed to kick its ass while I was worn down to about half strength."

"It's a variety of demon known by many names," Trissiny said. "Pseudodragon is the most common one, but in some places they're known as wyverns, and in the infernal tongue, they are called..." Trissiny cleared her throat.  _ "Fl'gantherto." _

"Jesus, do you have a frog in your throat or something?" Rose asked.

"...Who's Jesus?" Juniper asked.

Rose was spared from answering that question by the arrival of Professor Ezzaniel.

* * *

"Now, let's see... Three students left," Ezzaniel said. "Miss Corcoran, Mister Arquin, you two are up next."

Rose nodded, before waving her hand and wiggling her fingers, creating blue sparks and causing her hat, sash, and robe to fly off and neatly fold themselves in a pile. Underneath it, she appeared to be dressed like an Omnist monk preparing for martial arts practice, except that, once again, every article of clothing she wore was some shade of blue. It was like she was afraid everyone would forget that she was a wizard if she didn't constantly remind them.

Gabe paused mid-step, mouth open.

"...You have a spell for taking your clothes off, huh?" Gabe asked, waggling his eyebrows.

"Arm yourself so I can hit you," Rose said flatly.

Gabriel hurried over to the bag of practice weapons, and pulled out a quarterstaff, probably the same one Toby had drawn.

"Oh, that's adorable," Rose said as Gabe stepped back. "If imitation's the sincerest form of flattery, Toby's ego must be in the stratosphere by now." She reached into the bag herself, and pulled out a longsword.

"My dad was in the Army," Gabe said, spreading his feet a bit too widely and holding the staff in both hands. "He carried a battlestaff."

"Probably not like that, but I get your point," Rose said. "Pull your feet a bit closer together, you're gonna hurt yourself like that."

Gabriel held his staff like a spear, braced against the incoming charge. Rose held her sword at her waist, as though she was simply carrying it casually, rather than expecting a fight.

"Bow," Ezzaniel commanded. "Begin."

Rose straightened up and started walking forward at a brisk pace, casually backhanding the staff to her side and closing the gap with Gabe in barely two seconds. Before he could try anything, she brought up the sword and slammed it pommel-first into the side of his head, knocking him off his feet.

Trissiny frowned. That sort of technique would've made sense if Gabe had been wearing a helmet, but against an unarmored target, it was just showboating. And sloppily executed- if Rose had more than a few months training, Trissiny would eat her sword.

"Would anyone like to explain to Mister Arquin what he did wrong?" Ezzaniel asked while Rose helped the boy to his feet.

"When I deflected your first strike, you should've pulled it back and stepped backwards," Rose explained. "When you don't do that, your weapon gets trapped outside your opponent, and becomes useless. With a staff, you want to keep a good distance from your opponent, or you want to be good at fighting without it, so you can kick people who get too close."

"Only partly true," Ezzaniel corrected Rose. "A quarterstaff can be used to great effect in close quarters for blocking, but typically, that requires knowing what you're doing. Let me guess: you were taught to treat a quarterstaff like a blunt spear?"

"More or less," Rose said. "Although I've never really trained with either. Just a sword."

"Very well. In the interest of giving him a fair shot, I'd like you two to go again. This time, Miss Corcoran, go a little easier on him."

"Alright," Rose said, taking a few big steps backward from Gabe. "En garde, fuckboy."

"Begin."

Gabe rocked back and forth on his feet a few times, looking nervous.

"While we're young, buddy," Rose said, looking bored.

Gabe dropped his head and sighed. "I can’t hit a girl."

"Oh, by all the gods in the sky," Ezzaniel groaned. "I’d hoped to go at least one year without one of these."

"How many times do I need to hit him with the sword to cure him of this?" Rose asked.

"That's an excellent question, and I encourage you to find out. I'll tell you when to stop."

Rose rushed forward, sword arm cocked back, and Gabe flinched, bringing his arms- and staff- up to block, and then crumbling like a wet sheet of paper when Rose instead kicked him in the groin.

"Told you your stance was too wide," Rose said conversationally.

"You... fffucking..." Gabe moaned in pain, rolling onto his side.

"Now, when you finally relocate your balls, I want you to get back up, and hit me as hard as you can," Rose said. "You may have misheard me- I don't mean hit me at half strength. I don't mean hit me just hard enough for me to feel it. I want you to hit me,  _ as hard as you can." _

"Should we do something?" Teal whispered.

"Applaud," Trissiny said, grinning.

Gabe staggered to his feet, breathing heavily and snarling, his staff forgotten where it lay. Rose, in soldarity, cast her sword to the side, and squared up in a boxer's stance.

"Hit me with your best shot," Rose said, bouncing lightly on the balls of her feet.

Gabe rushed forward, chambering his right fist for a powerful haymaker, before throwing it... right into Rose's waiting grasp. With the hand  _ not _ locked on his wrist, she grabbed him by the front of his shirt, turned her back into his front, and crouched down, throwing him over her shoulder to land on his back.

"Stop," Ezzaniel said, and Rose stepped back from Gabe. "I trust, Mister Arquin, that you no longer have any reservations about hitting a girl?"

"Not...  _ that _ one..." Gabe said, breathing heavily and clearly trying to calm himself down.

"Poor baby," Rose said. "You need me to get a healer for your ego?"

Gabe snarled, glaring at her, and she ignored him, walking back over to where her robe and hat were sitting.

* * *

After class had been dismissed- Ezzaniel elected to test Teal against Gabe, to make sure the lesson had stuck- I wandered off for some privacy before Herbalism with Rafe.

"God," I muttered to the empty air. "The Tower changed me more than I thought, huh?"

"I was about to ask," Toby said, making me jump and reflexively fling a shadowbolt. It splashed harmlessly against his divine shield, and he blinked a few times.

"...Don't sneak up on me like that," I said quietly.

"Sorry," Toby said. "Is, uh, is there a  _ reason _ you know infernomancy?"

"Every Salyrite born in the last few decades knows the basics," I said. "Of all four schools, not just infernomancy. I'm not really much of a Salyrite myself, but I  _ have _ received a comparable education to a Salyrite apprentice."

"I wasn't aware Salyrites had a martial tradition."

"I said comparable, not identical." I sighed. "Look, remember what Arachne said about the traits we have in common?"

"That we're all too dangerous to be left unsupervised?" he guessed.

"Yeah. Well, I was dangerous because of some knowledge in my head, and otherwise helpless," I said. "So, I asked for and received some...  _ remedial _ education, shall we say. Well, that remedial education was a months-long dungeon crawl, and now I've got some basic magic and combat skills. I've also apparently come to view violence as an acceptable problem-solving tool, which will help me with the weird-ass adventures Arachne sends us on, but will also result in things like... y'know. Violently and publicly bullying a kid who's done nothing worse than be mildly annoying." I sighed. "I'm gonna have to apologize to Gabe, aren't I?"

"I'm not going to discourage that," Toby said sagely. "And... pardon if this is too intrusive, but this remedial education... is  _ that _ why you're rooming separately? Or is it the knowledge?"

"It's because I'm transgender," I said with a shrug. "On this good Avenist campus, I don't expect it to really be that big of a deal. It is, however, my business, and I decide who gets to know. You grew up in an Omnist environment, I'm sure you can relate."

"...I'm sorry, did you just describe this campus as  _ Avenist?" _ Toby asked.

"What, did the extremely high standards of mandatory martial competence fail to tip you off?" I asked, grinning. "Honestly, for all that Tellwyrn and Avei bicker and have their differences, they're actually a lot alike." Thunder rumbled in the distance, and I tilted my head back to address the sky. "Oh yeah?! Come down here and say that to my face, punk! Tell me I'm wrong!" It rumbled again more distantly. "Yeah, that's what I thought!"

"...That training must've done wonders for your confidence," Toby said.

"Nah, I was already a rude bitch," I said with a shrug. "Alright, well, I'm done sulking for now. Where's everyone else?"

"Er..."

"And this is why I learned a basic pathfinding spell," I muttered, silently calling upon the relevant spirit companion. "Arright. Follow me."


	6. Chapter 6

"Hey, Gabe. Sorry I was an asshole to you in Ezzaniel's class," I said as Toby and I approached the rest of the class. "It has occurred to me that deliberately humiliating you in front of everyone else with the express purpose of pissing you off wasn't a very nice thing to do."

"Wow, took a Hand of Omnu to realize that, huh?" Gabe muttered.

"It has also just occurred to me why I did it anyways," I said. "Whatever. You'll live. Hey, weird question, but have any of you seen a dark elf-"

"The preferred term is drow," Shaeine corrected me. "We do not, as a rule, appreciate being compared to those scrawny knife-ears."

I blinked a few times. "So anyway has anyone seen a  _ drow _ woman with green hair and a bad attitude?"

"Yeah, you were off using the bathroom when we met her," Teal said. "She was...  _ really _ weirdly aggressive."

"Ah, damnit," I muttered. "Okay, so, Natchua is Narisian, not Scyllithene. She's got a grudge against Shaeine because she grew up poor in Tar'Naris, and Shaeine grew up very wealthy, as a Matriarch's daughter. She's had a very unpleasant life, so I would appreciate it if all of you, as a personal favor to me, were nice to her."

There was a moment of silence.

"Fine," Ruda said. "But only because you kicked Gabe in the balls."

"That's gonna follow me for the rest of my tenure here, huh?" I asked.

"I don't see any reason why  _ I _ should let you forget it," Gabe said, folding his arm.

"Eh, give it a week," I said with a shrug. "Someone's bound to do something worse to you. Anyway! Botany!"

"Herbalism," Toby corrected me.

* * *

I sleepwalked through the first class yet again, but woke up right at the end.

"ONWARD TO GLORY!" Rafe yelled, turning around.

"Wait, I have a legitimate question relevant to the subject matter!" I yelled, making him halt in his tracks and turn around, glimmers of desperate hope in his eyes. "I'm a horribly inexperienced gardener who wants to grow something in my windowsill that is easy but also useful! What sort of plant do you recommend for the purpose?"

"Do you know any witchcraft?"

"A little bit."

Rafe tapped his chin. "Alright, the rest of you, go have fun. This is going to take a minute."

I carefully picked my way down the path to the other end of the greenhouse, while Rafe walked over to a cabinet and started rooting around.

"So, gardening witchcraft is some of the easiest there is," Rafe said. "It's not  _ just _ about making plants grow faster, though. You also want to use witchcraft to change the conditions the plant is in- make it a little more humid or a bit cooler in some places. SO!" He finally found what he was looking for, and turned around, holding a book titled  _ The Salyrite Gardener. _ "Read this, see what plants grab your fancy, and I'll see about supplying you with seeds."

"There's actually one plant in particular I was curious about," I said, turning around to make sure everyone else was gone. "Tell me... Do you know where I could get a few seeds of sylphreed?"

"...Officially, it doesn't exist," Rafe said carefully. "Unofficially, only the groves cultivate it, and it's got some persnickety requirements on top of being a controlled substance. If you  _ really  _ want to try and grow a river plant in an artificial environment... well, you'll have to work your way up. Prove you know what you're doing."

"Would growing a pumpkin the size of a carriage be a good start?" I asked.

Rafe considered this carefully, tapping his chin. "...Yeah, I suppose." He handed me the book, then turned around and grabbed a paper packet of pumpkin pips, handing that to me too. "Now-"

"Onward to glory?" I asked.

"Actually, I was about to ask if you needed another potion."

"Oh, definitely," I said, nodding. "I look like a fuckin' Crowblood half-elf."

"Nah, your hair's not dark enough for that," Rafe said. "So, bigger?"

"Eyup," I said. "If you don't mind a challenge-"

"Hah! Rafe fears no challenge!"

"-then the subject of pumpkins being on the table already furnishes an excellent metaphor," I said. "One major growth potion, and a gaggle of minor shrink potions would be helpful for dialing things in quickly."

"Rafe fears one challenge!"

"Oh come on!"

"You do  _ not _ want to knock back too many potions in quick succession," Rafe said. "That's an  _ excellent _ way to overdose and have all  _ sorts _ of awful symptoms."

"I thought that was just healing potions."

"Nope, pretty much all potions have a risk of overdose," Rafe said. "For permanent transformatives, you don't wanna risk more than one a week."

"Damnit," I muttered.

"Also, your clothes might stop fitting."

"That's hardly a problem," I said, waving dismissively. "I'm a wizard who knows how to weave and sew, I can make a new wardrobe in a few days if I need to. Letting the seams out to fit a new figure would barely take any time at all."

"Fair enough. Right! Well, got another potion ready, because  _ I _ plan ahead," Rafe said, reaching into a belt pouch. "Take it on an empty stomach, and preferably in privacy."

"Speaking of planning ahead- are there any rules or restrictions on what we're allowed to bring on Golden Sea expeditions, or can we just bring whatever we think to bring?"

"Well, we're sure not about to discourage you from getting in the habit of preparing thoroughly to make your life easier. Bring whatever you can carry."

"Duly noted. Thanks!"

* * *

The potion helped, a lot. Before, I'd been wholly reliant on my name and my hair to be recognized as a woman. But now, in my adjusted robes, looking in the mirror...

I mean, admittedly, I wasn't yet a grand, curvaceous beauty, but there  _ was _ a noticeable bump on my chest, and enough of a flare to my hips for my robes and sash to accentuate.

I grinned, nodded, and turned away from the mirror, beginning to attend to my other concerns.

Rooming alone in The Lookout was actually very nice. Because I didn't have to share it with anyone, I didn't have to wear clothes at all times, or argue over who gets first dibs on the bathroom.

Or consult anyone whatsoever on the placement of my various pet projects. I got to put my flowerpot in whatever goddamn window I liked, I got to leave my loom wherever I pleased, and I got to be as noisy or silent as I felt like being.

I laughed as I watered the flowerpot. This was it, this was my power fantasy: living alone, having healthcare, and being able to finish knitting projects.

The Lookout itself was built a lot like what I thought a particularly humble wizard's tower would be like, clearly meant for one person who happened to have a lot of space-consuming hobbies. There were multiple floors, each dominated by more or less a single room, and while fully half of them had been more-or-less empty when I got here, the other half were definitely suggestive.

For one, my bedroom was more like a studio apartment, having not only an attached bathroom but also kitchenette, with a combination stove/oven and a refrigerator that was, thoughtfully, already stocked with food and ingredients for me. It even included a toaster because Arachne Tellwyrn is a deranged neophile who compulsively buys all the latest toys.

Two, there was a study with a complete- if basic and unfancy- stationary set, and more importantly, a number of bookshelves, all stocked with books. Rare or not, I wasn't really sure. But the names on their spines seemed quite interesting. And broad-ranging; there were a few editions of _Farmer's Almanac-_ I suppose it was an obvious enough name- _Historical Headhunters,_ _Moderne Book Of Cookery,_ and _The Aveniad._ Not that this was an exhaustive list; there was also a thick volume titled _Foundational Texts Of The Topaz College, Annotated,_ as well as _Wizard's Guild Correspondence Course: Years One Through Four._

And third was a storage room, which was  _ mostly _ cleaned out, but which contained a few power crystals, each the size of my thumb, and an apparatus for recharging them from the ambient aura.

This was, unquestionably, a wizard's tower. And I had it all to myself.

Which meant that I was going to cook a simple dinner for myself, take it down to the study, and read books all evening while doing some knitting. I wanted to try out some of these 'magical clothes' ideas in the  _ Textiles _ book. Not all of of them were really practical for mass-enchantment, being the sort of thing that really required a wizard's presence- and sometimes attention- to work properly, but funny enough, I  _ am _ a wizard, and that is therefore no obstacle to me.

And  _ that _ means I'm going to perform complicated rituals rather than learn how to do laundry without a proper washing machine.

Of course, this wasn't  _ entirely _ because I needed a hobby. Fact of the matter is, it turns out that keeping a low-level spell effect going all the time was a  _ great _ way to develop better mana reserves, and just about every serious wizard had some sort of near-constant mana sink that would keep their aura in shape. For most of them, it was a staff with a big honkin' power crystal on it, which was something like half the point of a wizard's staff, apparently.

I frowned, tapping my chin. Where, exactly, would I get a wizard's staff of my own? What should I look for in a staff? Eh. Questions for later. I'm sure Professor Yornhaldt would be happy to answer them. For now... for now, I'll keep on knitting. And maybe one day soon, I'll be able to make something more impressive than a sweater.


	7. Chapter 7

"Alright, well, that was disappointing," I muttered as I walked out of Introduction to Alchemy. It turned out that while Admestus Rafe was the best potion-maker in the world, he was a  _ specialist _ in potion-making, and practiced very little of the materials science slash transmutation side of alchemy. He could turn me into a knockout, but not lead into gold.

Or clay into iron, which I considered to be a far more useful transmutation on account it wouldn't get me killed for debasing the gold standard, but that's neither here nor there; if I wanna learn the magic of turning materials into other materials, I'd have to find some other way.

"Let's see where everyone else is..." I did my pathfinding witchcraft, and set off down the path at a brisk walk, my mind wandering to the magic I'd managed last night. I was now wearing a pair of self-cleaning, self-mending socks, which had taken me an embarrassing amount of time to get right, even with instructions.

But, they worked, they were comfortable, and I was beginning to feel like a magical housewife with how much attention I was paying specifically to knitting. But I mean, come on. Why  _ wouldn't _ I use magic to short-circuit household chores?

I found myself standing outside the door where, apparently, everyone was, and...

"...Why are you all in the infirmary?" I asked, walking in. Gabe was cradling a burnt hand, which I kinda expected from Alchemy, but why the hell did Ruda have a black eye?

"That is an  _ excellent _ question, and you're about to hear the answer," Arachne said, appearing behind me without any warning, and blithely ignoring the shadowbolt I'd reflexively hurled in her face. "Mm. We'll have to train that reflex out of you."

"You've had three thousand years to learn to stop sneaking up on adventurers," I protested, heart pounding in my chest.

"And the fact that I haven't demonstrates the task's impossibility," Arachne said sententiously. "You're only twenty two-"

"Thirty two thousand!" Fross corrected her.

"If you don't remember them, they don't count," Arachne said, waving dismissively. "Anyway, enough folderol. Punaji, congratulations on first punishment of the academic year."

"What!" Ruda yelled. "I- that-  _ she started it!" _

"Are you eight years old?" I asked, folding my arms.

"I've got this, thank you," Arachne said, shooting me a withering glare. "Fun fact, children: I've rearranged the ley lines on this campus to suit my needs. That includes scrying, and I was able to watch a full replay on Professor Yornhaldt's crystal ball. Here's what  _ I _ saw happen: Avelea tried to heal Arquin's hand, found out he was a half-demon when the holy magic burned him instead, and reacted the same way I expected a paladin to react: by flaring up and reaching for her blade."

"See?!" Ruda yelled.

"Quiet, you. Trissiny was  _ then _ talked down by Caine and Falconer, and as she is clearly not actively trying to murder Arquin in his bed, she has clearly come to understand that he is a person with a human soul who has done nothing wrong, if the fact he's allowed to run around freely and attend college is anything to judge by. This is, incidentally, the  _ expected _ reaction of a paladin to a demonblood; a bit of initial shock, then understanding and a bit of feeling bad about it. Despite her general narrow-mindedness and trigger-happiness-"

"Excuse me?!" Trissiny protested.

"You are, this time, excused. Despite these failings, the Hand of Avei is not a complete imbecile, as Avei tends not to employ those. And that would have been that, except  _ you-" _ Arachne turned to glare at Ruda. "-took it upon yourself to 'defend' Mr. Arquin by drawing steel on your roommate."

"Her sword is mithril, ac-" Fross began, before disappearing.

"Anyone else wanna interrupt me?" Arachne asked, looking around to a chorus of shaking heads. "That's what I thought. Anyhow, Punaji, you're getting credit for not having lethal intent; you were clearly just beating on her shield. You'll live to think twice next time you want to try pulling a sneak attack on someone drilled in combat forms since she could walk. If you  _ do _ feel a need to pick a fight with one of your classmates, try Miss Corcoran instead. She'll just knock you off your feet with a shadowbolt, one of the more harmless forms of combat magic. Yes, Miss Corcoran?"

I lowered my hand. "Don't shadowbolts cause nerve damage?"

"Only sometimes," Arachne said with a shrug. "They mostly just cause pain and numbness. And if you  _ do _ give Miss Punaji nerve damage defending yourself from a sneak attack... well. She started it. Anyhow! Onto the subject of punishment. Immediately after your last class today, you will report to Stew, the groundskeeper, and see to whatever tasks he assigns you until he is satisfied with your work. The semester only started, so there shouldn't be too much to do. You might even get to sleep tonight."

Ruda groaned.

"Now, everyone who  _ isn't _ in a bed, out. You all have class. Move it along."

"Wait, where's Fross?" I asked.

"Oh," Arachne said. "You know.  _ Around." _

* * *

Professor Tellwyrn graded their essays in silence at the start of class, barely reading each page for more than a few seconds.

"Well," she said, sighing and setting the stack down, once she was finished. "As you doubtless managed to figure out, this has been a little ‘getting to know you’ exercise. You’ll be glad to hear that you are reaching a point in the semester after which there won’t be many more of those, if any. The idea here is chiefly to give me an understanding of what I have to work with; I’m not somebody who teaches by the book, nor is anyone who understands how people learn. The weaknesses you perceive in those around you reveal a great deal about your own, which will tell me what I’m going to have to work on with each of you. So, mission accomplished."

She began to stroll calmly up and down the rows of desks, speaking as she did so. "Miss Avelea, you are a judgmental jerk."

"What?!"

"Worse, you’re not aware of it. Mr. Caine, you’re also a judgmental jerk. You do realize this, and in overcompensating you reduce yourself to spinelessness. Miss Falconer, you have lofty ideals and neither the guts nor the backbone to do anything with them. Miss Awarrion, you’ve a head full to bursting with academic knowledge and little notion how such things actually play out in the real world. That’s a forgivable failing; it’s what you’re here to learn, after all. On the same note…" She came to a stop between the desks occupied by the two fae. "Juniper, Fross... I really can’t tell whether the issue is that you two don’t understand mortal society or that you just don’t understand, period. We’ll work on that, as best we can. Mr. Arquin. You are an extremely clever young man."

"Aw, thanks, teach," he said smugly.

"You are nearly a tenth as clever as you think you are. The gap there will be what kills you. Try not to let that happen on my campus. Miss Punaji..." She heaved a sigh. "...grow up. And Miss Corcoran, you did not turn in an essay."

"That is correct," Rose said, not looking up from her book. "I believe I'm supposed to tell you to sit on it and spin, at this point, but my heart's not really in it."

"Did you  _ really _ figure out what I was doing, or did you simply already know?"

"A little of both. I'd heard stories, but also figured it out in the middle of said stories, so." The wizard shrugged. "I tried to convince the others, but I suppose my technique could use some work."

"Yes, it could," Tellwyrn said. "Well, you get a C for the time being. Everyone else... you turned in the assignment, so I suppose I'll have to pass you. You all get a D."

Everyone but Rose and Shaeine erupted in protest, wholly unintelligible save for Ruda's  _ extremely _ loud cursing. Arachne tolerated this with good humor for all of ten seconds, at which point she lifted a hand, a divine shield sprung up around Rose, her fingers snapped, and a thunderclap sent the rest of the students rocking backwards, knocked over chairs, and threw Fross into the back wall.

"Blind obedience to authority is a swift path to mediocrity," Tellwyrn said. "Likewise, blind opposition to authority is a swift path to a brutal ending. You must learn to find a middle ground, to understand what you are and are not willing to bend on, and the effects that will have on the individuals and groups you encounter. You must understand yourself, and understand the world around you. Both of which are the skills this class aims to teach. This task was to gauge how far along you are. I can't say I'm impressed.

"I give this assignment, or one much like it, every year. Something needlessly cruel, meant to drive wedges between everyone. The  _ correct _ answer to this assignment was Miss Corcoran's answer: conferring outside class, and then showing up with no essays and telling me to.. what was it? Sit on it and spin?" Tellwyrn chuckled. "Miss Corcoran, for extra credit, I'd like to hear why, exactly, your heart wasn't in it."

"Are you  _ fucking-" _ Gabe began.

"HAND, Arquin!" Tellwyrn snapped. "Please continue,  _ Miss Corcoran." _

"Oh. Well, honestly, it just didn't seem  _ that _ cruel or meanspirited to me," Rose said. "The way I saw it, you were asking us to get together, talk about the skills we do and don't have, and what we have to teach each other. I mean, yeah, to an extent you're also asking us to admit weakness to each other, and for nobility that  _ is _ on par with waterboarding, but for normal people like the dryad, the paladins, and the half-demon, that's not that big a deal."

"Really, you have no trouble at all admitting weakness?" Tellwyrn asked.

"I'm a self-absorbed narcissist with a pathologically fragile ego and a sharply limited capacity to intuitively consider the feelings, wants, and needs of others," Rose said with a shrug. "Self-awareness isn't exclusive to people over the age of 25, no matter what the maladjusted malcontents matriculating through here try to demonstrate.  _ Really, _ the only reason I didn't do the assignment is because I just couldn't be fucking bothered, and I knew you considered not doing it to be the correct answer."

"In that case, you get to do the assignment this evening, and have it on my desk before midnight," Tellwyrn said. "Sass and backtalk I'll tolerate; intellectual laziness, I will  _ not." _

"So I should learn to lie to you and say what you want to hear to avoid extra work?"

"Your essay will now be  _ four _ pages."

"...Fine, you win. Cantankerous old bitch."

"And don't you forget it. Now! The rest of this class will be focused on the history of the Tiraan Empire, as it is an  _ excellent _ ongoing case study in everything a civilization can do right  _ and _ wrong. It is also, for obvious reasons, immediately relevant to everyone in this room. And like all good stories, it begins a thousand years ago."


	8. Chapter 8

Trissiny looked up at the tower. This was The Lookout, as far as she was able to determine. Where Rose stayed, and spent most of her time outside class. Would Trissiny even be able to enter? She frowned at the door, before reaching for the knob and giving it a twist.

It refused to budge.

With a sigh, she knocked on the door twice, and began to wait.

A minute later, she knocked again, and barely five seconds later, she heard a click, and then the door opened.

"Sorry it was locked, I didn't want company," Rose said, hatless and unshod. "What's up?"

"I was hoping to talk to you," Trissiny said, wondering about what it meant that the door was locked. She understood that Rose roomed apart from the rest of the girls, but was the  _ entire _ Lookout Rose's personal space?

"That's unusually social of you. Here," Rose said, pulling a glass vial full of green liquid out of her robe. "Drink this and take off your boots. Closest thing I get to an exception to Arachne's policy."

"What  _ is _ that?" Trissiny asked, staring at the vial.

"Alchemical birth control," Rose said. "If you were planning on getting pregnant anytime in the next week, then this'll put a damper on that. Again, Arachne's policy."

"Why would-" Trissiny froze, eyes going wide. "Wait,  _ that's _ why you don't room with us! You're-"

"Not so loud!" Rose said, clamping a hand over Trissiny's mouth. "You and I may be good Avenist women, but the culturally-Omnist Imperials we're surrounded by are  _ not." _

Trissiny nodded silently, and accepted the vial from Rose. She stared at it uneasily, before uncorking it and knocking it back, trying not to notice how it tasted like... wait, was that mint and blueberries?

"Alright, come on in- and seriously, take your boots off. I have to clean this place, and I don't want you tracking mud," Rose said. "Study's just upstairs, we'll talk there."

\---

"I'm terribly sorry for my suspicion, Sister," Trissiny said. "Considering some of the details you've shared..."

"...Such as?" Rose asked, waving her hand and causing her knitting to resume. "Go on, don't leave me hanging."

"Well, you being older, and having a peculiarly detailed knowledge of demonology..."

"Oh! Yeah, no, I'm just fucking weird, and I enjoy messing with people. I just room separately from y'all because I'm trans, and Arachne's dormitories are segregated by genitalia, rather than gender."

"I see," Trissiny said. "...What did you mean, earlier, by 'culturally Omnist?'"

"It's... Hrm." Rose tapped her chin. "Okay, so, you know how the Huntsmen of Shaath are extraordinarily misogynistic? Well, that's the thing- they're  _ extraordinary. _ As in,  _ not normal. _ The sexism and homophobia that exists in modern Imperial society certainly isn't  _ helped _ by the Shaathists, and I'm not disputing that the Huntsmen of Shaath are terrible people, but the fact of the matter is that they are a tiny religion whose influence doesn't really extend past a sparsely-populated and impoverished mountain range.  _ But, _ there  _ is _ a much  _ larger _ and more  _ influential _ faith that I think  _ is _ responsible for the sexism and homophobia in Imperial society... and that faith is Omnism."

"...Really, now," Trissiny said, eyes narrowed.

"Ask Toby how Omnists feel about gay people, if you don't believe me," Rose said. "For all that he's a faithful Omnist himself, I bet you diamonds to donuts that he's got a problem with  _ that _ part of his faith. But! I'd rather not dwell  _ too _ long on theological disputes. I actually have a gift for you I've been meaning to give you."

"Oh?" Trissiny asked, blinking. "I wasn't..."

"It's nothing special, honestly," Rose said with a shrug, waving a hand and summoning from a corner of the room... "Some socks. I've been told the Silver Legions still use footwraps, so I figured you might appreciate something less likely to give you blisters if you put it on wrong."

"Still, thank you," Trissiny said, accepting the socks. "They look very comfortable." She turned them over in her hands. "...Are these  _ eagles, _ stitched into them?"

"Ah, good, you noticed," Rose said. "I'm not much of an Avenist myself, so hopefully it's not  _ too _ much of a sacrilege. They're on the top of the sock, so it's not like you're stepping on the Goddess' symbol."

"It's fine, it's fine, it's just..." Trissiny trailed off, thinking about one of the girls who stayed in the Abbey every summer. Her mother was a Legionnaire who liked to knit, and always sent her to the Abbey with socks almost identical to the ones Rose had just given her. "Reminds me of home."

"Glad to hear it. Let me know if you've got any requests," Rose said. "I like making things, and having an excuse makes it more fun. I understand Avenism isn't exactly a culture that esteems fancy textiles over functional ones, but... Well, extend the offer to your roommates, too. Just keep it to yourself why I'm rooming alone, okay?"

"I will," Trissiny said, nodding. "So... where did you learn how to fight?"

"On a  _ very _ educational dungeon crawl, with a  _ very _ rude talking sword. His name was Athenos, and..."

\---

"Oh, there was one other thing I was meaning to ask you about," Trissiny asked, after I finished relaying the story of Salyrene's Tower to her- except for the part where I was from another planet. "That throw you used on Gabriel- that was Sun Style, but when you were fighting with a sword, you mostly stuck to Eagle Style dueling forms. How did..."

"Oh, that's easy," I said. "Where I'm from, Sun Style and Eagle Style don't exist. That throw I did was taken from a martial art called Judo, meaning, 'the gentle way.' It's the sort of thing Teal would love, as long as you don't tell her that the gentle way is actually  _ extremely _ martially effective, being as it strikes your opponent with your own body weight  _ and theirs, _ while also knocking them off their feet and taking away their ability to meaningfully fight back. Oh, and working just as well- or perhaps even better- on armored foes who cannot be meaningfully harmed with a simple punch."

"I see, I see," Trissiny said.

"However, I never formally studied the gentle way. I've just taught myself a few beginner techniques from a book. I cannot stress enough that I am not actually a trained fighter, and I would lose in a fight to anyone in our class  _ except _ Gabe or Teal, neither of whom have any fighting ability whatsoever."

"I suppose I'll have to ask Toby about it, then," Trissiny said. "Thank you. You've given me a lot to think about."

"What, are you heading out already?" I asked, glancing at the window. "Not even evening yet."

"It's almost time for dinner," Trissiny said. "Will you be joining us?"

"Hrm..." I chewed on this. On the one hand, I really should get used to actually talking to these jackasses, and not just reading about their antics.

On the other hand, I've just about had my quota of leaving my home for the day.

"No, no I will not," I said, shaking my head. "I'm ready to retire for the day, sit around, read books, and knit. And... write that assignment Tellwyrn wanted me to write."

"Perhaps you shouldn't call her- or anyone- a bitch," Trissiny said.

"I understand your point as regards insulting someone for being a woman," I said. "However,  _ between _ women, it can be a term of playful ribbing and verbal roughhousing. I'll refrain from using it with you, but that's about the extent to which I agree with your aims, there. And  _ before _ this starts another argument that keeps you from leaving, I would like to remind you that I have homework that needs doing."

"Very well. Take care, Sister."

"My name is Rose."

"Duly noted."

Trissiny showed herself out, and I groaned once the door was closed. I was gonna have to  _ write _ this shit, wasn't I?

\---

Eventually, I muscled through the executive dysfunction, found a book that taught me a spell for dictating letters, and rambled out loud for about four pages about my memories of these assholes and their flaws and character trajectories. I then folded the pages up, stuck 'em in an envelope, then stuck the envelope into the center crease of a paper airplane that I enchanted to fly itself to Arachne's office, using  _ another _ spell from, funnily enough, the same spellbook.

I was halfway through stitching the enchantment into the underside of a magic carpet when Arachne teleported into the room.

"You spend one summer learning magic, and suddenly you're using it for everything," Arachne said, holding my enchanted airplane in her hand.

"Hey, it worked, didn't it?" I asked. "Besides. In terms of usable skills, I'm starting with a bit of a handicap. I need all the practice I can get."

"Well, I won't argue with  _ that _ logic," Arachne said. "...Are you making a magic carpet?"

"Eyup," I said, still stitching the enchantment in. I was doing it by hand, simply because creating a spell to do it for me would've taken way longer, and the book didn't provide one. "And no, I don't really have a practical use for it. Nobody uses magic carpets anymore.  _ But, _ it's a big enchanting project that's more complicated than self-cleaning clothes, so..." I shrugged. "Frankly, this is a dry run for making a bag of holding."

"And an excuse to make something complicated, pretty, and cool."

"Okay, that too." I shrugged. "I'm a person. We like pretty things, for the most part."

"Just don't neglect your other schools," Arachne said. "One day, you'll have to fight warlocks, and being as you're neither me nor a blue dragon, you'll find your wizardry wholly unsuited to the task."

"Yeah, I'm probably gonna have my secondary focus be in witchcraft for exactly that reason. I honestly don't anticipate fighting very many fairies or witches, and fighting priests is what wizardry is for. Only problem is, witchcraft is the sort of thing you can't really learn out of a book."

"You are enrolled in a university with an unusual emphasis on the magical arts."

"Yeah, but it's run by  _ you. _ How good can the fae program really be?"

Arachne snorted. "Very funny. You know I employ people who  _ aren't _ me, right?"

"Wait, you mean 'Admestus Rafe'  _ isn't _ your nickname when you're in drag?" I grinned. "Anyhow, your policy is that we only get one elective in our first semester, and I'm using that for  _ actual _ wizardry training with Yornhaldt so I don't fuck up a spell and blow up the Lookout. Right now, my best hope for practicing witchcraft is to hope you send us somewhere with elves, and then pester them into teaching me something." I frowned. "And also hope that my idea of 'befriend and feed my fairy companions with infernal energy' isn't a completely fucking stupid one."

"It's workable, but it's also something pretty much every human witch already does, so it's not some great trick you've worked out," Arachne said with a shrug. "Anyhow, you're actually wrong about learning witchcraft from a book. It's not  _ ideal, _ I'll grant you, but it's  _ possible. _ Go to the library after class tomorrow, I'll give you a list of books."

"Thanks, Arachne."

"Since when were we on a first-name basis, young lady?"

"Since you decided we were close enough for you to walk into my home uninvited and unannounced," I said with a grin.

"Brat."

"Bitch."

"You like this with  _ every _ authority figure you come across?"

"Nah, just the ones I figure'll tolerate it."

Arachne snorted and rolled her eyes. "For future reference, undermining my authority in front of the other students is grounds for an asskicking.  _ But..." _

"Aw, you really  _ do _ care."

"Just don't let anyone else catch you saying that. I've got an image to maintain. And papers to grade." She sighed, and disappeared again, teleporting out.

I shrugged, and returned my attention to the carpet. Hopefully I'd be finished before tomorrow rolled around.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry this chapter was a day late, i bought outer worlds yesterday and beat the whole thing in one eight hour sitting, then passed out for eleven hours.


	9. Chapter 9

"Oof!"

Ruda grinned, pulling her training rapier back as I stumbled, rubbing at my stomach where she'd just jabbed me.

"Hah! See, I'm  _ amazing!" _ Ruda declared.

"Again," Ezzaniel said. "Miss Corcoran, you may now use magic."

"Wait-" Ruda began.

"Begin!"

The shadowbolt I threw physically lifted Ruda off of her feet, and I grinned.

"You're supposed to dodge!" I called helpfully as she picked herself up.

"May I consider my point made, Miss Punaji?" Ezzaniel asked.

Ruda groaned, insensate.

"Oh come on you big baby, I didn't hit you  _ that _ hard," I said.  _ "...Did _ I hit her that hard?"

"She's indulging in melodrama," Ezzaniel said, folding his arms.

"And  _ you're _ indulging in  _ cheating," _ Ruda groused, rubbing her bare midriff. "Fucking  _ ow." _

"My  _ point, _ Miss Punaji, is that arrogance will kill you as swiftly as any blade will," Ezzaniel said.

"I thought the point was that swordplay can only carry you so far in a fight, and it's important to have other tricks up your sleeve," I said.

"Battle magic is outside the scope of this particular class," Ezzaniel said noncommittally. "No more magic, Miss Corcoran. Only Eagle Style. And Miss Punaji, remember that you are  _ not _ sparring against an untrained novice. You are sparring against someone who could bury you in a matchbox if they stopped holding back."

I blinked as I realized what Ezzaniel had made me do.

"Now, continue."

I'm gonna be feeling this tomorrow.

\---

"Hey, no hard feelings about Ezzaniel's class, right?" I asked Ruda as we walked off to Herbalism.

"Not anymore," Ruda said with a shrug. "I aired my grievances pretty damn thoroughly, I think. Thanks for bein' a good sport about it." She tried to throw an arm around my shoulders, and then glared at me for having the audacity to be six feet tall.

"You're adorable," I said, patting the top of her hat and "accidentally" shoving the brim further down her head.

"You wanna  _ fucking _ go, bitch?!"

* * *

"Off to the library too, huh?" I asked as Herbalism let out, and Gabe, Fross, Ruda, and Shaeine seemed to be following me.

"Indeed," Shaeine said. "I have been recommended a book on the history and culture of surface elves, as part of my History major."

"Oooh, that sounds legitimately interesting," I said. "I should probably look into that sometime soon, too. All I know about the surface elves is that they live forever and most of 'em like fairy magic. Which... is the subject of the book I'm looking for, too. Fross? Ruda? Gabe?"

"I'm here to reach high shelves," Gabe said with a shrug. "I'll admit that 'stepladder' isn't the  _ most _ dignified profession, but hey, anything for a lady who asks nicely."

I struggled with the impulse to say 'she's not gonna fuck you,' but eventually held it back. Gabe's impulse to do favors and nice things for people was...  _ slightly _ misguided, but ultimately a good thing.

"I'm just lookin' around," Ruda said.

"I'm looking for spellbooks," Fross chimed. "Oh! Rose! You're already a wizard, do you have any recommendations?"

"I am a  _ novice _ wizard," I said. "I'm barely a few months ahead of you. I can tell you that, for me, learning a spell to knit with arcane magic was good for training my telekinetic precision and logic construction. But, depending on what you want to do, that might not be the most useful thing." I tapped my chin. "...Actually, nevermind, for someone your size, arcane telekinesis is actually an  _ amazing _ first step. Oh! That reminds me! Gabe!"

"Me," Gabe said.

"Here," I said, pulling an enchanted flashlight out of my pocket. "Hold this in your hand, and stick out your arm."

"Uhh..."

"Just trust me, it's not gonna hurt."

"Fine," Gabe muttered, accepting the flashlight, and allowing me to grab his arm.

"Now, tell me if you feel this."

I sent a few drops of mana through his arm and into the flashlight, which glowed merrily.

"Whoa," Gabe whispered. "Yeah, I... I felt that."

"Good. You can do arcane magic," I said. "You don't have  _ much _ mana, being untrained and half-hethelax- the infernal magic woven into you is gonna interfere with any arcane magic you try to do. You're  _ definitely _ better off as an enchanter than as a wizard.  _ But, _ practice makes perfect. See how long you can make it glow, but if it starts to hurt, go see Miss Sunrunner. Might be mana fatigue."

"Aw, you sweet on him or something?" Ruda crowed. "Making him think of you when he's charging his wand?"

"Suck my hairy dick," I said, creating a holy shield right in front of her face while she walked, making her squawk and stumble. "Not sure if either of you two dipshits have picked up, but I am gay, and exclusively interested in other women. I  _ strenuously _ object to the notion that I should be interested in  _ this _ self-important asshat."

"...I was not aware you were a cleric," Shaeine said.

"Salyrite," I said, adjusting my hat. "Officially, we  _ aren't _ clerics. We're divine spellcasters. Cleric implies a spirituality and faith we simply lack. We're not a religion. We're a divinely-backed guild of spellcasters. And all of us, as our basic training, learn the basics of  _ every _ school of magic. No exceptions. So yes, I'm a divine caster. And a witch.  _ And _ a warlock. And so is every other Salyrite you'll ever meet."

"Wait, you know all four schools of magic?" Gabe asked. "I thought that was impossible."

"No, it's just something nobody but Salyrites bothers to do," I said. "It's better to specialize in one school of magic- between the Circles of Interaction and the fact that they all work in different ways, it's just not really practical to do combined workings, and any one school can more or less cover all your bases, depending on what, exactly, you plan to do for a living. That's another thing to keep in mind, kids: outside of the moneyed elite, spellcasters  _ work _ for a living, providing services and sometimes goods for people. Most spellcasters you meet will  _ not _ be trained adventurers who are master swordsmen. They are journeymen and masters in their professions, and they find more profit in deeper skill in their specialty than they do in spreading out their efforts.  _ Or, _ they're Salyrites, who are bookish academics that study magic with the aim of advancing the field."

At least, I was  _ pretty sure _ that was true. Being as I've never left this campus and have only read about the outside world, and more specifically stories  _ about, _ overwhelmingly, said moneyed elite. And then, all things considered, Gabe was the only one present who could reasonably gainsay me, being as he was the only one who had grown up in proper Imperial society.

"I mean, Gabe," I continued. "How many candy makers do you know who  _ also _ make horseshoes?"

"Well, there's this one place I grew up near, called The Tannery," Gabe said. "Candy shop run by this couple, named the Tanners.  _ But, _ they also had a stand of magazines they sold, alongside the candy. That count?"

"Ehhh... Not really, since they don't  _ make _ the magazines," I said. "They just buy 'em from a printer and resell 'em at a premium. They're not learning a wholly unrelated trade skill, there."

"Now hang on, I know merchants pretty well-" Ruda began.

"Merchants by definition don't make  _ anything _ besides a profit," I said. "They move goods around to where they're most wanted, and it doesn't take different skills to haul grain instead of silk. And  _ none _ of this is relevant to  _ magic, _ which was the  _ original _ point." I blinked. "Oh, hey, we're here." Time to do witchcraft to find the book I need, and leave without talking to the librarian. "Hey, Ruda, ten..." I trailed off, wondering what the hell the currency here was, and then deciding against it. "Actually, you'd do it for free- the librarian, Gravestone Weaver? I bet he'd  _ love _ it if you called 'im Greasetoss Wanker."

"Do it yourself," Ruda said.

"But then I'd have to acknowledge his existence, and I'm just not ready for that," I said. "Anyhow, later. Gonna go look for my book now. See you chumps tomorrow."

* * *

I was beginning to discover something of a problem with my idea of studying witchcraft: to do witchcraft, you need to bond with the spirits in the world and convince them to do magic on your behalf. You don't so much learn a new spell as you do make a new friend, or teach that spell to your existing friends. And while I  _ did _ have a lovely pathfinder spirit and fairy-fire spirit with me, their abilities were somewhat limited. Feeding them hellfire was  _ probably _ a good idea, make them stronger and all, but the fact remained that if I wanted any options for witchcraft beyond finding targets and setting them on fire, I would need new spirits.

Problem is, spirits are somewhat location-based. I  _ could _ cultivate a space in the Lookout that would attract spirits- in fact, I probably would tonight, after I had dinner- but the fact of the matter is, right now, locked up in Last Rock?

My options were  _ very _ limited.

But I couldn't  _ possibly _ be the only witch at the Unseen University. I mean, fuck, if nothing else, Miss Sunrunner is here. Maybe there's  _ already _ a fairy grove that attracts spirits, that I can go collect allies from.

...Or maybe that's a great way to piss off the other witches, by poaching from their spirit pools.

There was some noise from outside the window, and I groaned, turning on the sound-dampening charms. Fucking kids never shut up. Always into something or other. I turned my eyes back to the book, and thought back to the fairy-fire spirit. It had proved devastatingly effective against demons when I'd imbued its power into Athenos... but, I no longer had a sword. How would I get one, outside of Ezzaniel's class? Trissiny was a General in the Silver Legions, and they still issued swords. I bet if I asked nicely, I could get Trissiny to requisition one for me.

The windows lit up, and I drew the curtains in. Damn kids with their fireworks. It's Wednesday, for fuck's sake! We have class tomorrow!

Ugh. Well, the sword is something to ask about tomorrow. Or, actually, maybe I could ask Tellwyrn or Ezzaniel for advice and/or help.

With this resolution in mind, I continued reading, figuring that, even  _ without _ a sword, I could use the fairy-fire spirit to fling fireballs. Probably. I, uh, haven't tested that, and wasn't about to. Not indoors. Or  _ outdoors, _ when the prairie is covered in fairly flammable tallgrass.

...Maybe I should rethink how much I want to be a mighty magician.


	10. Chapter 10

"I'm tellin' you, there is  _ something _ weird with that girl," Ruda said over breakfast.

"Are you talking about me behind my back again?" Trissiny asked, sitting down at the table, fresh out of the shower.

"No, I'm talkin' about Blue."

"Rose," Teal explained.

"Who is, to my knowledge, simply an ordinary devotee of Salyrene, Goddess of Magic," Shaeine said.

"What's so strange about a wizard?" Trissiny asked. "They aren't exactly  _ uncommon, _ you know."

"Yeah, well, when the wizard rooms alone-"

"There's a perfectly mundane explanation that happens to be none of your business," Trissiny said.

"-already knows exactly what to expect from this place,  _ and _ all the staff already seem to know her-"

"There's a perfectly mundane explanation for  _ that, _ too," Trissiny said.

_ "-and _ who backsasses  _ Tellwyrn _ with impunity,  _ that _ all is pretty fuckin' weird," Ruda said. "Oh, and let's not forget that she's lying about her age."

"How do you figure  _ that?" _ Teal asked.

"That 'thirty two thousand' number she threw out is bullshit, obviously," Ruda said.  _ "Nobody _ is that old. But I'm pretty damn sure she's not twenty two, either. It's a convenient age to explain why she's so familiar with a four-year university, make herself seem like a fresh graduate who just  _ happened _ to decide to go back to college  _ again. _ My guess is, she's Tellwyrn's secret half-elf bastard daughter, who's a  _ lot _ older than she's letting on. I mean, who  _ knows _ how half-elves age?"

"I do," Shaeine said.

"Plus, she's scrawnier than even Shiny Boots here," Ruda added. "No  _ way _ is she a normal human."

"What I don't understand is  _ why _ Tellwyrn would do any of this," Trissiny said.

"You  _ really _ don't get why Tellwyrn would make her own kid attend her own university in secret?" Ruda asked. "Oh, sure, she'll cover it up, but let's face it, that woman wouldn't know subtle if it wrote its name on her face while she slept. So she'll let her kid openly cheat in class, and have her own dorm so she doesn't have to rub shoulders with the riff-raff. I bet you this isn't even the first time Rose has attended here."

"...You know what the worst part is?" Teal asked. "I can't really refute that. It... it  _ does _ make sense."

"I'm still not convinced," Trissiny said. "If Rose  _ were _ a half-elf, wouldn't that be more obvious?"

"Not necessarily," Shaeine said. "Not every elfish trait is so visibly obvious and easy to see. For the record, I do not believe this myself, but for my own reasons that are not fit to discuss in polite company."

"If you think Tellwyrn's such a bitch that nobody in their right mind would sleep with her, you can say so," Ruda said. "'m a pirate, pretty sure that automatically makes this  _ im _ polite company."

"I've noticed," Trissiny said flatly.

* * *

"So this is The Lookout, huh?" Gabe muttered, staring up at the tower and feeling a strange sense of deja vu. He couldn't imagine why, seeing as he'd never been here before.

With trepidation, he knocked on the door.

A few seconds later, it opened, and Rose was standing there. "The hell  _ this _ ti- oh, hey Gabe. What do you want?"

"I need your help," Gabe said. "It's... Trissiny."

"Ah. Right, her," Rose said. "Alright, come in."

"Won't the wards-"

"The wards are to prevent pregnancies," Rose said. "Considering the amazing contraceptive that you call a personality, you'll be fine."

Gabe sighed, shaking his head, stepping inside.

"Oh, shoes off in the entryway," Rose added.

"You know it's not  _ just _ the Sifanese who do that, right?" Gabe said, stepping inside and taking off his shoes. "'Quit tracking mud in my house' is a pretty  _ common _ cultural practice, all things considered."

"Gabe, I have  _ met _ college students. I am taking absolutely no chances on you fuckers partaking in basic hygiene without being forced by one wizard or another."

"Hey, I resemble that remark," Gabe said.

"Yeah, yeah. Alright, study's upstairs, that's where the good chairs are."

Gabe followed Rose up the stairs, carefully  _ not _ staring at her rear. He didn't need  _ another _ girl with a reason to kick his ass; he was still sore from Trissiny's murder attempt last night.

"So. Trissiny." Rose flopped into an overstuffed leather recliner, steepling her fingers. "What seems to be the problem with Trissiny? And why is it a big enough problem to interrupt both of our Saturdays?"

"Well, there's the part where she tried to kill me," Gabe said, settling into his own chair.

"...shit, did that happen  _ already?" _ Rose whispered. "Fuck. I thought... Well. I knew  _ something _ like that was going to happen, but... I thought I had more time to avert that. Sorry, Gabe."

Gabe snorted. "Don't see what  _ you're _ apologizing for.  _ You _ didn't try to kill me."

"I could've done something to help, and I did-" Rose paused mid-sentence. "...Was it Wednesday night?"

"Yeah?"

"I heard the noise and saw the flashing lights, and  _ ignored it, _ assuming that it was just dumb college kids making a ruckus," Rose said, before palming her face. "Oh my  _ god _ I'm an idiot. What the fuck. Oh my god."

"Uh, not to make this all about me, but can we focus on my problem now?" Gabe asked. "How do I get Trissiny... friendly enough that she doesn't try to kill me again?"

"Ugh. Okay, well, first and foremost, it'll...  _ mostly _ go away on its own before, at maximum, the end of spring semester?" Rose said. "That being said, if you want to speed the process along... Take an interest in people. Ask them about themselves. Treat every person you're talking to like they're the most interesting person in the world, and you want to know everything they're willing to tell you. For Trissiny... You have to wash dishes with her every night, right?"

"Yeah?" Gabe said, nodding.

"Well, next time, your mission is to find out, in whatever manner you see fit, the name of the woman who raised her, what a day in her life before coming to Last Rock was like, and what her favorite food is," Rose said. "You can even tell her that I told you to find out, if you think that'll help. Just, y'know, try to show a genuine interest in what she's saying, and preferably, don't  _ stop _ at learning those things."

"And... if I can't?"

"Then I will curse the both of you to have blisters on the soles of your feet, and you can tell her about  _ that, _ too."

"You're a dangerous person to disappoint," Gabe said.

"I learned from the best," Rose said. "If that's all, I've actually got an appointment in ten minutes- Fross and Juniper are coming by for some basic art lessons."

"Wait, art lessons? You're an artist?"

"Eh, kinda? I grew up in a place where art was a standard part of public education-"

"It's like that here, too," Gabe said.

"Oh, huh," Rose muttered. "Well, anyway, I have some personal interest in art, too, but not  _ that _ much. I'll probably never be very good at it, and am only really qualified to teach the fairies the very basics. If they like it enough... well, then they can take some art classes here once our schedules open up a bit more. Or look into some 'how to draw' books from the library or whatever. There's a merchant from Tiraas who stops through on a weekly basis, I bet she'd be willing to bring some stock this way."

"Wait, a merchant from  _ Tiraas?" _

"You're not the only person in the world from Tiraas, Gabe. It's a big city. Anyhow, I think she's associated with the Universal Church? Gave me a free copy of the Vernisite holy texts, had the three-coin sigil pinned to her lapel, and said she's with the Universal Church." Rose shrugged. "She said she was in the business of cultivating contacts, out here, and was willing to buy just about any goddamn thing a University student was willing to sell her."

"...She buy from demonbloods?"

"I asked, and she said, and I quote, 'discrimination is bad for business.' So I called her a gutless worm too craven to know right from wrong, and she told me the preferred term is 'merchant.'"

"Yeah, sounds pretty Vernisite to me," Gabe said. "At least, in the novels, they're always gleefully amoral like that."

"The real ones are usually less gleeful about it," Rose said flatly.

Gabe snorted. "Not a fan of Vernisites?"

"The lust for money and power, and the pursuit of it at any expense that could be shunted upon the poor and powerless, brought my last home to ruin," Rose said. "With the advent of industrialization, the same can happen here, too. Athan'Khar is  _ not _ an anomaly, or an aberration. The same structures that allow a few high-ranked shitheads to wipe an entire nation and most of a people off the map for what amounts to no good reason are still around today, and they  _ will _ be used that way again, if they're not stopped beforehand."

"You're a real ray of sunshine, ain'tcha?" Gabe groused.

"Nah, I'm an optimist," Rose said. "I'm a dumb enough schmuck to think I can actually  _ do _ anything about this. And, sure,  _ maybe _ if I was a Paladin, or a Crown Princess, I'd have a better chance. But, uh. As it stands now?" She sighed. "Well. I've got a ways to go, yeah. Here's hoping Avei decides two Hands are better than one."

"What about Salyrene?" Gabe asked. "I mean, you're already Salyrite, aren't you?"

"Salyrene hasn't called a Hand since Magnan the Enchanter wiped Athan'Khar off the map and drove the world's handful of remaining orcs into exile off the continent," Rose said bitterly. "I doubt I'll be the one to break a streak of a hundred years. The old lady's prideful; she'd rather sulk for a century, rather than actually admit fault and work to fix her mistakes. She's also hard to get the attention of; Arachne tried for three  _ thousand _ fucking years, and only succeeded in the immediate aftermath of Athan'Khar and the Enchanter Wars, when she killed Magnan the Enchanter. So, y'know.  _ That's _ the standard that's been set for me."

Gabe hummed thoughtfully.

"So yeah," Rose said. "Gods are, by and large, a colossal pain in the ass. I do not recommend them."

Gabe snorted.


	11. Chapter 11

It had been a month since the semester started, and we'd finally gotten properly settled in.

"You can’t do this to us!"

Some of us more than others.

"It’s  _ murder!" _

I'd finished out my course of potions, having found my ideal body shape. I was still fairly slender- being tall made it harder to be anything else- but there  _ were _ some lovely curves to my shape. In fact, I looked a lot like Avei, if Avei was fond of blue robes and pointy hats. So, Avei's nerdy sister.

"He’ll drop us all down a well or something!"

I had picked up a few new spirit companions for my witchcraft, but also advanced my wizardry considerably, learning how to make more permanent logic constructs- which I had been surprised to learn were called robots, rather than golems.

"There have to be laws about this kind of thing!"

I had one such robot reminiscent of a little toy wagon with tank treads, made of wood and brass, to carry my stuff. More complicated than a flying carpet, but more energy-efficient, too, since it didn't have to levitate things.

"Don’t you have a bleeding  _ heart, _ woman?"

I'd considered putting it on spider legs at first, but then realized that there was no way in hell I was going to figure that one out in time, and kept it simple. Besides, I only had so much money to spend on materials. That merchant from Tiraas that I'd started selling carpets to was generous with her prices, trying to cultivate a good contact with an up-and-coming wizard, but there was the fact I now had to buy my yarn myself, and ultimately, money is finite.

_ "Children!" _ Professor Tellwyrn shouted in exasperation. "You’ve been here nearly a month. You were told on the first day that you’d be graded primarily on field work. This expedition has been scheduled for two weeks. The announcement of the professor leading it went out  _ five days ago. _ Honestly, if you want to put up a fuss about things that aren’t going to change, that’s your lookout, but just  _ now?" _ She shot them an irritated look over her shoulder. "I have  _ no _ tolerance for procrastination."

It was 4:39 in the morning, just  _ barely _ after first light. If my astronomy was right, we had about an hour until the sun rose in earnest. The whole class was up and groggy, everyone carrying backpacks stuffed with camping supplies. Well, except Ruda and I, who had ample extradimensional storage and, in my case, a robot to carry my shit  _ for _ me.

I was about to offer the use of my robot to the others, on the grounds that it needed to be tested, but then Ruda started talking, and I stopped listening. She was smart and funny and generally worth listening to, but "generally" and "always" were different concepts, and Ruda frequently found herself bitching and moaning for the sake of bitching and moaning. Which, I get it, but it's six in the morning. Pace yourself, kiddo.

We met up with the boys and Professor Rafe, and some more folderol unfolded that I didn't really pay attention to. I checked my watch- it turned out that, when you once made a hobby study of horology and clockmaking, and then got handed a magical toolset that made engineering  _ so _ much easier, you ended up with a digital wristwatch with some extra functionality, like tracking the date, and also true north, and- for giggles and grins- latitude and longitude.

I hadn't yet gotten it to project a hologram of the globe with my position marked on it, but that would be  _ way _ more complicated, and honestly it wasn't that much of a priority.

"Wait, anti-death potion?" Gabe said, catching my attention. "Isn't that just medicine?"

"Nah, it's immortality," I said. "You drink one, and anything that would kill you just... doesn't."

"How's  _ that _ work?" Gabe asked.

"Poorly," I said flatly. "Rafe made a  _ limited _ anti-death potion. And the limit is a  _ time _ limit- all that shit that would've killed you but didn't? It's less that it doesn't work, and more that it gets put off... right up until the potion wears off. Then  _ everything _ hits you at once. It's, uh... not pretty. But, y'know, still a huge accomplishment."

"Who told you that story?" Arachne demanded.

"Oh, y'know, a librarian-slash-bard," I said with a shrug. "There's a few of 'em around."

"Hang on, anti-death potions are supposed to be impossible," Ruda said. "A myth. Like the Philosopher's Stone."

"Both are real, if of limited utility," Arachne said. "Remember this, children, if nothing else: Never trust a magic gewgaw that promises unearned power and immortality or whatever. Or you'll be dead within a month. I've seen it a thousand times. One of those stories is how I got these glasses, in fact."

"Oh, I love that story! You never told Professor Yornhaldt you were lying about the Huntsman, though," I said.

"At any rate, your guide awaits you," Arachne said, gesturing in the general direction of Professor Rafe. "Have fun, kids.  _ I _ am going to be enjoying some peace and quiet." And with that, she walked off.

"She knows there's other students here, right?" Toby asked.

"What, there  _ are?" _ I asked. "Huh, I thought it was just us."

"Yeah, yeah, we get it, Rose, you're unobservant," Ruda muttered. "We noticed."

"When the hell did you have time to do  _ that?" _

Teal sighed. "This is gonna be a  _ long _ trip..."

* * *

"Ugh, all this  _ fucking _ walking," Ruda groaned, about a half hour into their hike through the tallgrass. The Golden Sea was beautiful scenery, but also fairly  _ monotonous _ scenery. One might think that surely it couldn't  _ all _ be tallgrass as far as the eye could see, but one would be wrong; there hadn't been so much as a single shrub to add variety.

"It's called  _ exercise, _ and it's  _ good _ for you," Rose said, displaying a surprising amount of endurance and athleticism for a shut-in bookworm of a wizard.

"Oh fuck off. Hey, don't you have that magic carpet or something?" Ruda asked.

"Yes, Ruda, I am going to maintain a levitation charm to carry all of us over the tallgrass all day," Rose said. "That is one hundred percent plausible and not an abjectly terrible idea that would exhaust the magical capacities of every magician present before noon, leaving us largely defenseless."

"No wonder Tellwyrn put Rose in charge of dealing with magic," Gabe muttered.

"Oh. She did? I wasn't listening." Rose shrugged. "Oh, also, I only have the one magic carpet, having sold all the others to a merchant from Tiraas, and it's not big enough for all of us to sit on it."

"Okay, maybe not a flying carpet," Ruda allowed. "But, what about... What about an enchanted carriage? You've got a pint-sized one right there carrying your bag."

"Oh, sure, I'll buy a Falconer and bring it out here into the tallgrass," Rose said. "And when it inevitably breaks down within three days in a way I can't hope to fix without a fully-stocked workshop, I'll just put on my socks made of golden chainmail and hike the rest of the way home! What's next, Ruda? Want I should've brought a fucking whaleboat and conjured up a river to follow?"

"I was  _ gonna _ suggest  _ horses..." _

"If you want a horse so bad, you can pay for it your fucking self. I'm not made of money."

"Falconer carriages are pretty reliable these days," Teal piped up. "I mean, I wouldn't bet on one lasting a full week out on the Golden Sea without needing repairs, but with a wizard..."

"Falconer carriages are still, I will note,  _ expensive," _ Rose said. "Not everyone present is rich, y'know."

"You have a brass wristband with a watch embedded in it," Teal pointed out.

"Yeah, because I didn't buy it. I'm a wizard. I  _ made _ it. And will you all quit your bitching about having to walk? Omnu's pendulous ballsack, we are  _ humans. _ Walking long distances is our fucking evolutionary specialty."

"Ahem," Shaeine said, elfishly.

"You are  _ human enough," _ Rose snapped.

* * *

"Are we there yet?" Gabe asked.

"No," Rose said.

"Are we there yet?" Ruda asked.

"No."

"Are we there yet?"

_ "No." _

"Are we there y-"

"I'm gonna break your fucking legs and leave you for the coyotes."

They marched on in silence.

"...Are we there yet?" Teal asked.

Rose screamed.

* * *

They stopped at a small hill- really, a boulder the size of a castle that stuck out of the prairie at an odd angle- once dawn had fully broken at 5:52. At the top of the hill, Rafe sang in off-key elfish and fried bacon and eggs over a fire of alchemically-treated tallgrass.

"There, that should keep the sun off of us," Rose said, finishing the anchoring spell on her pop-up awning.

"What, none for me?" Rafe asked.

"Sorry, I've only got the one," Rose said. "Oh, hey, Juno, this is a question I probably shoulda asked earlier, but do dryads, strictly speaking,  _ have _ to eat? Like, are you capable of starving to death?"

"We  _ are, _ but we don't  _ stay _ dead very long," Juniper said. "Makes a big mess, too."

"So we definitely need to keep you fed, then. You have a normal human caloric intake, right?"

"About that much, yeah."

"And Shaeine?" Rose asked. "I know elves have a different metabolism, but..."

"Surface elves are capable of gorging themselves in one sitting and going entire months without eating," Shaeine said. "Drow are... less metabolically gifted. I can last a week before beginning to hunger. I would, of course, prefer to eat more regularly, but if I must go without for the good of the group, it shall not be an excessive hardship."

"The hell are you asking about diets and rations for?" Gabe asked. "We've got plenty of food."

"Hah!" Rafe barked. "Fun fact, kids! This bacon and eggs we're about to eat? Is  _ all _ the food I brought! And  _ you _ little ducklings get to learn how to live off the land!"

"Yeah, some of us read the assignment parameters before coming out here," Rose said flatly. "Some of us even went down to the Last Rock General Store and purchased one hundred pounds of pemmican, which should feed the eight of us who need to eat for about twelve days."

"Hang on, your math's off by one," Rafe said.

"No it isn't," Rose said sweetly. "You're on your own, shithead."

Rafe considered this carefully for a few quiet moments, before bursting into laughter.


	12. Chapter 12

_ "No more, no more, go to sea no more. It was then that I wished that I was dead and could go to sea no more," _ Ruda crooned as we hiked. It was 11:23, and everyone who wasn't a paladin or a fairy or a witch sneakily using witchcraft to enhance her endurance was tired.

"GUYS!" Rafe yelled. "Guysguysguysguys! LOOK!"

"If it's another plant, I don't fucking care," Rose called. Rafe had been excited, at first, to identify every unique species of tallgrass, and in a twist of fate that handily illustrated the monotony of the Golden Sea, running out of unique grass to identify within an hour of walking.

Of course, Rose had  _ also _ taken an interest in the tallgrass, collecting it as they walked and using magic to swiftly weave it into wide-brimmed straw hats for her classmates who had been fool enough to go hatless. She simply hadn't made an audible fuss about it.

"It's not just  _ any _ plant!" Rafe cried. "It's  _ corn!" _

"Don't touch it, you don't know where it's been," Rose said.

"What, is she our  _ mom _ now?" Ruda muttered.

"She just thinks she's surrounded by idiots," Trissiny whispered, shaking her head. "Mind, in Rafe's case, I can't blame her for that."

"C'mon, kids, grab an ear! You haven't lived until you've had corn fresh off the stalk!" Rafe continued.

"You know not all corn is edible raw, right?" Rose said. "This is incredibly basic knowledge I expect anyone who lives in the area to possess, but you're playing the fool right now, so..."

"It's still in the milk stage," Rafe said dismissively. "Perfectly edible, as long as we do it today."

"Hang on," Teal said. "This is planted in  _ rows. _ In a neat square, even. Someone  _ cultivated _ this."

"Yeah, let's  _ not _ fuck around with whoever's ballsy enough to farm in the Golden Sea," Ruda said.

"About that..." Gabe said, prompting everyone to turn around, and finally notice the elf.

She was a plains elf, in richly-decorated buckskin shirt and trousers, all greens and golds to blend in with the tallgrass, and in her hand was a lightning wand, jabbed into the base of Gabe's throat.

There was a moment of silence, before Rose threw a shadowbolt at her.

"Rude," the elf said, effortlessly ducking out of the way.

"You know what else is rude? Sneaking up on adventurers. It's also bad for your health," Rose said, planting her hands on her hips. "You're gonna get yourself killed if you keep doing that."

"Not if their aim is as poor as yours is."

"Alright, Rose, calm down," Rafe said. "When you're scrapping with elves, don't worry about the one you see, worry about the three you don't. Also, this is my friend, Ansheh."

"Real friendly-lookin'," Ruda said, staring at the wand still against Gabe's throat.

"Annie, dollbaby," Rafe continued, ignoring Ruda and turning to face the elf directly, holding out his arms for a hug. "You never come visit anymore! I was starting to worry you’d been eaten by a swallowgator or disemboweled by a jackalope."

Ansheh rolled her eyes, and took a step back from Gabe, lowering the wand as she left arm's reach.

"Well," Gabe muttered, rubbing the base of his throat. "That was fun. Let's never do that again."

Rafe and Ansheh began conversing quickly in Elfish, and those who could understand the language perked up.

"...Someone else mind letting me in on the joke?" Ruda asked.

"The fuck kinda merchant princess doesn't speak Elfish?" Rose retorted. "Anyway, Rafe's getting the news. Talking about the weather. Travel. That sort of... oh, fucking hell."

"Oh, good, I didn't mistranslate that word," Teal said, face white as a sheet.

_ "What?" _ Ruda demanded.

"Centaurs," Ansheh said, switching back to Tanglish. "Silence, Admestus. You are a  _ teacher, _ are you not? Then do not presume to  _ protect _ your students from the truth."

"The hell's a centaur?" Ruda asked.

"Imagine a horse, except instead of a head, it's got the upper body of a human," Rose said.  _ "Now _ imagine that these horse-men have a strong cultural practice of reckless infernomancy, corrupting their spirits and filling them with unreasoning aggression."

"If they aren't true earthborn demons, they are the next worst thing," Trissiny said. "They will not care whether or not we have anything worth the effort of taking. They will fight us simply for the sake of fighting. Their aggressive, heavy-handed dealings with every people besides their own have seen them wiped out everywhere on the continent  _ except _ the Golden Sea."

"Thousands of years ago, they were once servants of the Pantheon," Ansheh said. "The chosen people of Sorash, the God of Conquest and Bloodshed. Then came the Hellwars; they fought loyally in the First, but were...  _ corrupted, _ by their brushes with the demons. Their experience in dealing with the holy bloodlust of Sorash fooled them to think they could handle the taint and corruption of hellfire. When the Second Hellwar came, they fought alongside Elilial's army; their raiders moved swiftly, and put the torch to every surface kingdom, leaving none standing in the aftermath. From that point on... they were cursed by the gods, and abandoned by Elilial, who had no more use for them."

"...I've never heard of Sorash," Trissiny said, frowning.

"He's the god that Arachne killed, about... Oh, a thousand-ish years ago?" Rose said. "Maybe twelve hundred? Point is, it was a  _ long _ time ago, before the Universal Church, and the Pantheon doesn't like talking about it. Don't want people getting  _ ideas _ about deicide."

"The main horde is far away, now, the way we reckon things on the Sea," Ansheh continued. "However, a small band seems to have split off. They remain near; be on your guard as you travel."

"The hell do 'near' and 'far' have to do with the Golden Sea?" Gabe asked. "I thought it shifted around randomly."

"It moves, but mostly by degrees," Ansheh said. "It is easy to lose your way, but in the time between major shifts, such things as 'near' and 'far' still have meaning."

"Uh, point of order, the Sea dumped a giant boulder and then this patch of corn on us without any warning."

"Shifts of a few miles at a time," Ansheh said with a shrug. "The Sea is mostly flat; if it were entirely mundane, you would only see perhaps three or four miles before the horizon. For those traveling on four legs, a distance of four miles is the gallop of only a few minutes. That is what makes centaurs so uniquely dangerous- they can be upon you before you even know they are present."

"Speaking of the corn," Rose began.

"The tribe will not be here to harvest in time," Ansheh said, shaking her head. "Take what you need. The rest will go to the crows as the wards faded."

Rose frowned at that, and then pulled a bag of holding out of her robe with one hand, gathering arcane energy in the other. A scything blade of blue light swept through the stalks of corn, and a blue haze settled over the ears, lifting them and drawing them into the bag of holding.

It wasn't a tremendously big field, but by Toby's estimation, harvesting it would've been the work of a full day for someone working without tools. He now understood why some of the monks thought poorly of wizards.

"Catch," Rose said, tossing the bag to Ansheh. "I hope the bag is an acceptable trade for the corn we take."

"...Very," Ansheh said, nodding. "Go carefully." She clicked a syncopated rhythm with her tongue, and a unicorn emerged from the tallgrass, clad in its own richly-decorated buckskin, with green-and-gold camoflage patterns much like Ansheh's. It was not unlike a reindeer- the size of a horse, with more delicate legs and cloven hooves. On its forehead grew a single long, spiralling horn. Ansheh mounted the unicorn adroitly, and rode off, disappearing into the tallgrass in seconds.

"ONWARD TO CORN!" Rafe yelled, once she was off.

\---

"Alright, kids, time for a quick herbalism lecture!" Rafe declared as we marched through the Sea. "Corn is, usually, a grain crop. The kernels are hard and starchy, and you've gotta process them to make anything actually edible out of it. But! When you get to it at  _ just _ the right point, called the  _ milk _ phase, the kernels are soft, milky, and sugary, and you can eat it like a vegetable. Very tasty!"

"Sweet corn doesn't keep nearly as well as mature, starchy corn," Shaeine said. "The Plains Elves, for whom this is a staple food, let it mature for this very reason."

"Hang on, do they actually  _ say _ that, or is that just a guess?" I asked. "Because remember, Plains Elves can eat a year's worth of food in one sitting and then go the rest of the year without eating. They don't actually have to worry that much about food spoilage."

"Ah, I see," Shaeine murmured. "Then..."

"Starchy corn can be processed in a manner called nixtamalization. At least, it's called that where I'm from. Corn kernels are soaked in an alkali solution, usually lime water or lye water, and this alters the nutritional makeup," I explained. "More nutritionally complete, that way."

"I thought Plains Elves were nomadic hunter-gatherers," Teal said.

"They are, for the most part," Shaeine said. "Their ability to practice agriculture is... limited, in the Golden Sea."

"You get, pretty much, one harvest of corn a year," I said. "You need to grow enough corn in one place to feed yourself for an entire year... and frankly, the Golden Sea just  _ does not _ get enough rain. Anyone notice how the tallgrass around that cornfield was unusually short? That, right there, is a common bit of shamanism. Plains Elves try not to do it too much, but a few caches of corn that take a day of planting each, and can potentially provide the tribe a good few weeks of food later? Well, that's just smart planning."

"Wait, you  _ can't _ grow crops in the Golden Sea?" Gabe asked.

"Plains elves aren't stupid, Gabe," I said. "If they could do that, they probably  _ would _ be already. They're nomads because this land won't support anything else."

"Hang on, if they can use magic to grow crops," Ruda began.

"It's a numbers game, and the short version is, it adds up to being better off letting the rain grow tallgrass to feed the bison, and then eating the bison, rather than squandering the rain on corn."

I grunted.

"And on a  _ completely unrelated note, _ everyone hold up a minute, I gotta take a shit," I said.

"What, now?" Teal asked.

"No, it's on my bucket list," I said.  _ "Yes, _ now!"

"Alright, it's bathroom break time," Rafe said.

"Where's my shovel..." I muttered, before shrugging. "Eh, fuck it, we're not staying here. Everyone mind looking the other way, giving a gal some privacy?"

It was a moot point; as I crouched down in the tallgrass, fiddling with my pants, I was pretty effectively invisible to the others, and they were likewise unseen to me.

And once I finished taking an extremely satisfying dump, wiped my ass with a page torn from the Vernisite holy texts, and stood back up, I found myself realizing that perhaps privacy was a bad call.

Out on the Golden Sea, things move around when you stop looking at them.

And turning your back on your party was a  _ great _ way to get separated.


	13. Chapter 13

The Class of 1182 reacted to losing their wizard with less grace than their wizard did.

"Why didn't you warn us?!"

"Are you out of your mind?!"

"We're all gonna die!"

"Kids, kids,  _ relax," _ Rafe said. "We're less than a day's hike from the edge of the Sea, and she's got a magic carpet. She'll be  _ fine. _ She'll just also be getting a poor grade on this assignment."

"I don't think you grasp the magnitude of the situation," Ruda said.  _ "She was carrying all the food!" _

"Oh no, you might have to actually  _ hunt _ for your food," Rafe said. "You know, like the assignment was all about to begin with. Truly, Punaji, my heart weeps for you. Now, if you're all quite done? ONWARD TO GLORY!"

* * *

"We meet again, wizard," Ansheh said.

"Hello, Thistle," I replied in Elfish, putting my translation charm to good work. "Did you know that it's a bad idea to stop to poop in the middle of the Golden Sea if you're traveling with a group?"

"I was about to ask where your group went." Ansheh- Thistle, in Elfish(appropriate, given her prickly disposition)- sighed. "Typical Admestus."

"We aren't far in," I reasoned. "I  _ should, _ in theory, be able to roll out a magic carpet and fly home before dusk.  _ But..." _

"You are loathe to abandon your friends," Ansheh said.

"It's more that I hate being left out," I said. "I wouldn't call my classmates  _ friends, _ they are...  _ very _ annoying. Funny to hear about in stories, but exhausting to actually be around. You know the type, you've met Admestus."

"Still," Ansheh said. "You have good instincts, wizard. Unfortunately, your magic will not help you here."

"I'm a practicing witch too, you know," I said. "May not be a shaman of centuries, but I'm hardly  _ helpless." _

"Oh? Then, reach out to the spirit of the Sea," Ansheh said. "Perhaps it can help you."

"Mind if I grab onto you, just to make sure we don't get separated?" I asked, stepping closer to her and the unicorn.

"Very well."

I laid a hand on her ankle, and closed my eyes, focusing on the magical senses I gained studying the fae craft. There were spirits with Ansheh, who I ignored, and a spirit off in the north, strong and mighty enough to be felt all the way out here.

_ I know you're there, Avatar 09. Help a bitch out, will ya? _

The Plains Elves knew that the Golden Sea had a mind of its own. They did  _ not _ know that the mind of the Sea was an ancient Artificial Intelligence left behind by the Elder Gods, or that the Sea itself was an unintended consequence of leaving an interdimensional portal on for eight thousand years.

Or maybe they did, and they just didn't tell outsiders about it.

_ No, _ came the reply.

_ Any particular reason why not? _

_ I separated you for a reason. You have lessons to learn out here, and they have their own. _

I groaned aloud. "Fucking..."

_ Fine, fine. The hell do you expect me to do, then? _

_ Get on your flying carpet and head further in. You'll figure it out from there. _

"Well, Thistle, it seems the Sea has its own plans for me," I said, opening my eyes and stepping back. "Any advice?"

"A battlestaff will kill nearly anything you find out here," Ansheh said. "The lightning itself is not magical, and will not be weakened by infernomancy."

"Oh, cool, so Arachne misled me," I said. "Right. Well, I  _ don't _ have a battlestaff, but I  _ am _ a wizard, and tossing lightning is something I've practiced. Good luck out there, Ansheh."

"Luck be with you, wizard."

"My name's Rose, just in case it matters," I said, reaching inside my robe and pulling out my best magic carpet, the one I  _ didn't _ sell. Well, okay, I didn't sell the first one, either, I lost it to Arachne over a game of Go, but that's neither here nor there. "Oh, and if you run across a witch and a half-elf and two other men with a pair of covered ox-carts, they're bandits, and you should accept no food they offer you. Especially not cornbread."

"Duly noted."

I got on the carpet, secured my hat, and lifted up a good twenty feet above the tallgrass, taking a moment to figure out which way was further into the Golden Sea. It sloped upwards towards the center, but only just barely, and I quickly gave up, using my pathfinder spirit to point the way.

"Onward to glory."

* * *

I'd acquired a few weapons in the month or so I've been at Last Rock. A standard-issue Silver Legionnaire lance- in fact, a full set of standard issue Silver Legionnaire gear, courtesy of Trissiny. Multiple improvised explosive devices, cast iron pipe stuffed full of guncotton and nails, fuses replaced with arcane detonators. Even a very primitive rough draft of a firearm that I would hopefully not be called upon to use.

The weapon I held, though, was one that had been given to me by Arachne when I'd used her office hours to ask where I might find a proper, usable sword; according to Trissiny, the swords sold in Last Rock to adventurers were fit for hanging on a wall and nothing more.

And rather than, say, giving me the name of a trusted swordsmith, or anything a  _ reasonable _ person would've done, she  _ instead _ gave me a fucking  _ magic katana. _

I wanted to say I had no idea why she had a magic katana laying around, but really, it wasn't hard to figure out: she was a weeaboo, on good terms with one of the godlike Kitsune who ruled Sifan- which was Japan as envisioned by the diasporic children of a displaced Japanese woman with poor parenting skills and an unhealthy love of nerdy pop culture, and also  _ far _ too much power. Frankly, I'm just counting myself lucky she didn't insist I learn to speak Japanese and compose a sword-centric haiku.

I didn't even particularly like katanas. A sword that's good on the cut is fine and dandy, but I would've preferred something straight that I could stab people with. And I would have  _ especially _ appreciated a sword that was like the one I actually trained with, which Tellwyrn damn well  _ knew- _

Oh hey look, someone in trouble. I guess I'll look this gift horse in the mouth some other time.

It was a Plains Elf scout, on his own, surrounded by four centaurs, all of them bleeding, but the elf worst of all. Well. The unicorn was worst off, but it was currently  _ dead. _

I frowned. Was I  _ really _ up to taking on four centaurs on my own?

The elf cried out, and the centaurs laughed, drawing closer, intent on drawing out his torment.

Well, I guess I was doing this, huh?

My first salvo was an overcharged arcane bolt that struck the bloodiest centaur squarely in the hindquarter, tearing skin and muscle and crushing bone. She'd live. Hypothetically. She wasn't actively dying, at least. Just indefinitely out of my way, and more importantly, unable to fight back.

The other centaurs noticed me, and began darting around, repositioning to deal with the obvious aerial target. None of them were warlocks, near as I could tell, but  _ all _ of them were archers; just about  _ every _ horse-borne steppe nomad was an archer. 

I threw up a divine shield just in time for a triplet of arrows to bounce off it in quick succession, and I began charging an arcane spell, maneuvering the carpet to keep all three remaining centaurs in my field of view.

They seemed to disagree with my goal, and started moving, but it turned out a wizard on a flying carpet was much more maneuverable than a horse, and my spell was charged up enough for me to be happy with it and drop my shield long enough for it to go off.

Spells that were inherently complicated to cast, with many meaningful variables to define and choices to make, were frequently impractical to perform in combat. In the time it took me to call my shots and charge this up, I could've fired off three lightning bolts from a staff and been done with it.

Problem was, I didn't trust my aim on a moving platform, and so a spell that did the aiming for me, and only needed to be cast  _ once, _ was perfect for the situation.

Thunder cracked and lightning arced through the trio of centaurs, sinking progressively lower on each centaur, to make certain that the lightning's shortest path to ground was, indeed, through the pre-defined ionized paths in the air and the intervening chunks of centaur flesh.

All three centaurs screamed, and began to smoke; two of them, already bloodied, collapsed to the ground, where their bowstrings made easy, still targets for me to snap with a cantrip.

The remaining centaur, however, was smart enough to try taking a hostage, and turned and galloped off towards the wounded elf. I didn't have time for another lightning bolt or magic missile, and if I let the centaur get to the elf...

I found myself moving before I fully thought it through, and pouring fairy-fire along my blade as easily as breathing. The sword flowed from its sheath like a river, carving a burnt canyon through the flesh of the centaur, sending screams and clouds of acrid smoke into the air.

She fell forward and rolled, landing at an awkward angle, twitching a few times before going still. Then, she crumbled into charcoal, and I was left with the fact that I'd just killed someone.

I shook my head. I could deal with that  _ later. _ Right now, there's someone else to rescue, preferably  _ before _ I have to kill any more people.

"Climb on," I said in elfish as I landed the carpet next to the wounded elf, sheathing my sword without cleaning it; between the inherent magics of the blade and the fairy-fire, there wasn't any blood to clean off.

"Thank you," the elf replied in kind, rolling on his- at least, I  _ think _ it's a male elf- side and onto the carpet. "My unicorn- take its horn."

I drew my sword again, and hacked the horn off at the base, then tossed the horn to the elf.

"That's it," the elf said. "Quickly, please."

"Don't need to tell me twice." I lifted the carpet up off the ground, and, consulting my pathfinder spirit, began taking us clockwise around the Sea's center.

With any luck, I'd be upon his tribe by nightfall, and be able to hand him off to an actual healer. I had divine magic, and divine magic was good for healing small injuries, but with more complicated trauma came the risk of healing things in the wrong place, and condemning them to permanent injury or even a painful death.

"Oh," I said conversationally. "Didn't get your name in all the chaos. I'm Rose."

"Clover," he said. "Glad to meet you."

"Circumstances could be better," I said with a shrug. "Really hope you aren't dying on me, over there."

"I should live," Clover said. "But... I am,  _ very _ tired..."

I grunted. Looks like I'm gonna have to hurry this up. If Clover died, then that fight was for nothing, and...

I grit my teeth and pushed that out of my mind. He wouldn't die. I wouldn't  _ let _ him.


	14. Chapter 14

The Plains Elves of the Yellow Stalks tribe were very gracious and welcoming hosts, when you saved one of 'em from death by centaur.

"You need to loosen up a bit earlier," the shaman, Ostrich, said, fixing my broken arm.

And that meant being drilled in basic cavalry techniques with the aid of mind-altering shamanism to make the lessons sink in quicker.

"I'm beginning to understand why so many martial cultures regard melee as the fool's option," I said through gritted teeth. "And I am also understanding why I was such a fool to bring no ranged weapon beyond my own magic. Well, I  _ do _ have one with me, but..."

"But?"

"But, it's a prototype I never intend to use in a fight, as it works by way of using a small explosion to fling a chunk of lead down a tube of steel, and if the explosion is too big, and my steel tube isn't good enough, it stands a solid chance of exploding in my hand." I winced. "I have a friend who's half-hethelax. In all honesty, my plan was to test it out by making  _ him _ test-fire the damn thing. Worst case scenario, I have to buy him a drink."

He laughed. "Do let me know how it works out for you. Here in the Sea, we are less set in our ways than our kin in the Groves; new weapons are something we take a keen interest in."

"I've noticed," I said. "Battlestaves don't exactly grow on trees, after all."

"They might as well," Ostrich said. "The humans have them, and we don't. So... we trade."

"Yeah, I suppose people who move from place to place as a matter of daily life might have a strong appreciation of trade," I said. "This is... Can I ask a potentially sensitive question?"

"Go ahead," Ostrich said. "The spirits need a bit more time to fix your arm up."

"Why do you still live out here?" I asked. "Isn't it dangerous to the point of most Plains Elves dying at 200? You could have longer, more comfortable lives where you never see a centaur, if you moved into the cities."

"Some of us do just that," Ostrich said. "Most of us do not, because while we understand trade perfectly well, we consider it to be a useful tool, not a way of life. Trading for  _ everything- _ even basic necessities like food and water and the right to sleep somewhere..." Ostrich shook his head. "It must be exhausting to live that way."

"...Fair," I said. "Honestly... I grew up with it, and I'm sick of it."

"And yet you will return to your home, because it is what you know," Ostrich said. "You no doubt have a list of reasons why you would rather live in Imperial society than a Plains tribe, but the truth is, people rarely enjoy abandoning the way of life they grew up with, and often only do so when things have grown untenable." He sighed. "Of course, if I'm wrong and you  _ don't _ want to return, you are of course welcome with us. But..."

"But, you are not wrong," I said. "I've left my home behind before, but... coming to Last Rock was an infinitely easier adjustment than living on the Sea."

"As for us not living terribly long out here..." Ostrich shrugged. "Life is inherently finite.  _ Nobody _ lives forever, not even the gods. They simply haven't gotten around to dying yet. We live longer than two hundred years on average, and do not  _ invite _ death, but should it find us at five hundred? Well. It was a good life. Living free, under the open sky, with the tribe. It wasn't perfect, but... imperfection, like death, is a fact of life."

I grimaced.

"You're human, you only have, what, eighty years left at most to accept the fact you're going to die," Ostrich said.

"I'm not thinking about my own death," I said, shaking my head. "I'm thinking about the deaths of others. I... I killed someone, today."

"The centaur, yes, Clover told me," Ostrich said. "I gather that this is no longer a normal life experience, for Imperials?"

"Death is still a part of life, but for us, it is rarely because we pulled the trigger. And part of it is..." I frowned. "It would be a great crime, nearly  _ unthinkable, _ for you to kill another elf of the Yellow Stalks tribe, yes?"

"Being as we are not Scyllithene Drow, yes, we have strong traditions against killing each other," Ostrich said wryly. "And I begin to see your point. Here on the Sea, there are other tribes, and centaurs, and other outsiders, people who  _ can _ be killed without nearly so much of a shock to the tribe. Raiding and warring, here, is simply a fact of life. But the Empire, it has run out of foes to raid and war against, and so it is no longer a fact of life."

"Well, yes and no," I said. "There's  _ also _ the fact that in the Empire, riding a horse and hitting small moving targets are not basic common life skills. We do not hunt for our food; some of us farm it in great quantities, and most others buy it from farmers or merchants. To the extent that the Empire  _ does _ raid and war... we have specialists who do that on behalf of the population. And... I'm only starting to realize that being enrolled in Arachne Tellwyrn's goddamn Adventurer University means that I'm being trained to be such a specialist." A shudder ran down my spine. "And I don't like it. I've already killed someone, and... I don't want to do it again. Not even demons, not even to save my friend's life. I... I can't do this."

Ostrich hummed thoughtfully, stroking his beardless chin.

"Well," Ostrich said. "Were you one of my own, I'd tell you to get over it,  _ but, _ between the fact you are  _ not, _ and the favor you've already done us... I have a solution for you."

"Oh?" I asked.

"I happen to have a spare spirit, which I  _ was _ cultivating for an eventual apprentice," Ostrich said. "It is a simple spirit, all told; it causes animals to grow fearful and flee. The Imperial Witch tradition has a method of growing a spirit's power quickly, does it not? Use that, and when you come across an enemy you do not wish to kill... Use fear to drive them before you."

"Centaurs are demons," I said. "They do not have a fight or flight reflex, they only fight in response to fear."

"Normally, yes," he said. "Normally, they do not have mind-altering magic working upon them. The spirit implants the impulse to flee as well as the fear, do not worry. It's easy to resist, if one has training or strong will, but... well. We've both met centaurs. They do not have strong wills, they have strange instincts."

"I see," I said. "...Thank you, Ostrich."

"And I will give this spirit over to you  _ after _ you can successfully pick up a tent peg with your lance at speed," Ostrich said.

"You son of a whore."

* * *

"And what happens if there’s not a convenient exit at the other end of this?" Gabe asked, after they had hiked deep enough into the ravine that the entrance was no longer visible behind them.

"Then we backtrack!" Rafe said cheerfully.

Their second day in the Golden Sea had gone... roughly as smoothly as their first day. They hadn't lost anyone else, but Juniper  _ had _ summarily executed a disabled centaur they'd taken prisoner after disabling him, which sparked a lengthy ethical debate that ended with Trissiny declaring centaurs to be demons, and that demons were to be given no quarter in battle.

"Doesn't Rose have a pathfinding spell?" Toby asked.

"Rose is not here," Shaeine reminded him.

"It also wouldn't really work in the Golden Sea," Rafe said. "If it did, she'd be here by now. She isn't, so..."

"Maybe it does work, but she's just sick of us," Ruda said. "Probably dipped out early because she'd rather take the hit to her grade than spend time with us."

"I mean, I've met us," Teal said. "Can't really blame her."

"It's the  _ principle _ of the thing, damnit," Ruda protested.

"You and Gabriel took turns asking her 'are we there yet,'" Trissiny pointed out. "Your grand plan to annoy the wizard worked, and worked better than you had any right to expect."

"Historically, annoyed wizards tend to throw  _ really _ messy hissy fits," Gabe added. "Ruins everyone's day."

"That's actually not quite true," Teal said. "Some wizards do that, but most historical accounts of that sort of thing are Professor Tellwyrn's fault. She's an outlier and shouldn't be counted."

"Oh, and Rose  _ doesn't _ resemble Professor Tellwyrn?" Gabe asked.

"If you thought Rose  _ did _ resemble someone you knew to throw violent hissy fits, why did you decide to annoy her on purpose?" Toby asked.

"...I am not a smart man," Gabe admitted.

"With respect, you are  _ unwise," _ Shaeine said. "Your ability to formulate and follow plans is perfectly sound. It is your judgement in what goals you pursue that is unsound."

"Thanks, Shaeine," Gabe said.

"Think nothing of it. Pointing out your shortcomings is a hobby of mine." Shaeine then frowned. "...Does anyone else hear that?"

"Nobody else here is an elf," Ruda said.

"I hear hoofbeats," Teal said.

"Please be another herd of bison, please be another herd of bison,  _ please _ be another herd of bison," Gabe whispered, as the rumble of hoofbeats grew loud enough for the humans to hear it.

"Sounds more like horses or unicorns," Juniper said.

"Hang on, there aren't horses or unicorns in the Deep Wild," Teal said. "How do you know what  _ those _ sound like?"

"The Deep Wild isn't  _ all _ forest, you know," Juniper said. "We've got places where horses and unicorns live."

"Enough," Trissiny said, cutting through the chatter like a sword through a knot. "Fross, go up and check for us."

Fross shot up and out of the ravine, for only a few seconds.

She came down with the one word nobody wanted to hear.

"Centaurs."


	15. Chapter 15

"How many, Fross?" Trissiny asked quietly, as the centaurs began whooping and hollering at the top of the ravine.

"Approximately fifty one, give or take five," Fross said.

"...I think we can take them," Trissiny said.

"You're insane," Ruda said. "They outnumber us six to one!"

"Centaurs are horse archers," Trissiny said. "Their primary advantage in a fight is range and mobility. Here in this ravine, both of those advantages are nullified. Meanwhile,  _ we _ have two paladins, a dryad, an archdemon... and a hethelax. They outnumber us? Fine.  _ We _ outclass them by a  _ huge _ margin."

"What, and I'm chopped liver?" Ruda demanded.

"You're a skilled fighter with a thrusting sword," Trissiny said with a shrug. "In a tight formation, that's always useful. You simply won't be on the front line. We decide as a group, but we do not have much  _ time." _

There was a pause.

"Fuck it, Shiny Boots knows her tactics," Ruda said. "I'm in."

"I... I can't," Teal said. "Not if there's any other way."

"The only true victory is a battle avoided," Shaeine said. "With this terrain, I cannot believe escape is impossible."

"Professor Tellwyrn  _ specifically _ said to listen to Trissiny in a combat situation!" Fross said.

"We killed one centaur already," Juniper said. "He wasn't so tough. Fifty more of him doesn't sound hard to kill. Besides, I  _ really  _ don't like them. We should definitely kill them."

"I can't support violent action when there's any alternative," Toby said, shaking his head. "Sorry, Triss."

"I know centaurs are diabolists, and don't really have clerics that can hurt me, but..." Gabe shook his head. "I'm a terrible fighter, and I don't want to be the reason someone else gets hurt. I say we run."

It was a tie, and they needed a tiebreaker.

"...What would Rose say?" Fross asked.

"She'd point out something basic about centaurs that we managed to miss, and then go up there and start flinging shadowbolts," Ruda said. "Shiny Boots,  _ you _ wanna take a swing at telling us what we missed?"

"Well, there is the fact that centaurs, being half horse, can effortlessly outrun humans on the open prairie," Trissiny said. "And, being demons, they cannot be scared off, only killed. With the long sightlines of the Golden Sea, we would have to be very stealthy for a long time, where one mistake will have the entire horde on top of us, out in the open, where their advantages of range and maneuverability can be fully brought to bear..." Trissiny swept her gaze along the others. "Running away is wishful thinking. We  _ will _ fight them, whether we like it or not. I suggest we fight them where we have the advantage."

"...There could be a cave in here, somewhere," Rafe said. "Hole up, hide, wait for them to go away."

And with that, Trissiny was officially outvoted.

* * *

"You know, the idea of putting a saddle on a flying carpet  _ seemed _ stupid at first, but  _ now..." _

"I know, right?" I said, floating this way and that way, feeling almost like I was riding a horse that moved impossibly smoothly and at impossible angles. "It  _ is _ stupid, but it  _ works." _ The process of putting a saddle on my magic carpet had been, ultimately, stupidly simple: I rolled it up and then put the saddle on it, stuffing saddle blankets into the cracks for stability.

"Ah, but it  _ isn't _ stupid," Ostrich said. "If it's stupid and it works, then it's  _ still _ stupid, and you're lucky. This isn't a stroke of luck, therefore, it isn't stupid."

"Fair enough," I said, shrugging. "Well. Thank you for letting me stay the night... and helping me get to sleep. I'll be out of your hair, now."

"Hey, if a weaver-wizard decides to visit and trade minor enchanting work and fabrics for whatever random trinkets we want to get rid of, nobody here is going to complain," Ostrich said. "Don't be a stranger, Rose."

"I  _ never _ want to go back into the Golden Sea again," I said. "I like you folk just fine. It's everything else I can't stand. But, if you're ever in Last Rock..."

"We try to  _ avoid _ Arachne Tellwyrn, being as she is an insane woman whose displeasure is frequently measured in dozens of corpses," Ostrich said dryly.

"True. Centaurs will just kill you. Arachne will  _ lecture _ you about how stupid you are, first."

"No, no, centaurs will torture you first, if they have time. Nasty stuff. They usually start with-"

"Wow would you look at the time I have to go right now."

Ostrich cackled as I flew off, and I flipped him off as I flew north, further into the Golden Sea, following my pathfinder spirit.

* * *

"Okay, this should be defensible," Trissiny said. "I could hold this gap on my own, if I had to."

"No debris, no cracks... This was man-made," Rafe said. "But  _ who? _ Not centaurs, obviously, it's too small for them to fit inside..."

"Look, cave paintings," Teal said. "Could it be... oh, wow, it  _ is..." _

"Mind letting us in on the joke?" Gabe asked.

"Look, there," Teal said, pointing at a slab of stone carved from the living rock, with a visible and even seam running along its sides near the top, all occupying pride of place in the square-cut room. "That's a sarcophagus. This is a  _ tomb. _ And I know who's buried here."

"Arachne is going to be  _ jealous," _ Rafe said, almost giddy.

"Okay, but,  _ who _ is buried here?" Toby asked.

"I mean, look. Stalweiss tomb paintings, Stalweiss grave goods... How many Stalweiss warlords do you  _ think _ are buried in the Golden Sea?" Teal asked.

"I have no idea, would you  _ please _ just  _ tell us?" _ Gabe said.

"This right here is the tomb of Horsebutt the Enemy," Rafe said.

"...Could someone  _ sane _ please tell me who's buried here?" Gabe asked, turning to look at Trissiny.

"It's a stretch, but it makes sense," Trissiny said. "Perhaps... Perhaps the Sea brought us here for a reason?"

"Are you fucking with me?" Gabe asked. "Now is  _ really _ not the time, guys."

"Have you never heard of Horsebutt the Enemy?" Trissiny asked.

"No! That name sounds completely made-up!"

"I've never heard of them either," Toby said.

"It was a big mess, a hundred years ago, on the tail end of the Enchanter Wars," Teal said. "Nobody came out of it looking good, and there's been so many cover-ups, lies, propaganda... Most historians aren't really sure what happened, anymore."

"Arachne was there, she'll tell you," Rafe said. "Or, hell, you could ask pretty much  _ any _ Wood Elf. They remember what happened. And don't mock the name; Stalweiss honor names are pretty weird. You should hear what they call Arachne!"

"Anyway... He was a Stalweiss warlord who raided out of the Golden Sea, and shaped the demographics of the frontier to this day," Teal said. "Ever wonder why everyone in Last Rock is pale and blonde?"

"Honestly, I thought it was Plains Elf blood," Gabe said.

"The Frontier would be a  _ much _ different place if it was populated by half-elves," Rafe said idly.

"And I wouldn't know, because the first time I  _ met _ a Plains Elf was yesterday," Gabe said.

"What about Mrs. Tanner?" Toby asked.

"Mrs. Tanner was a  _ City Elf," _ Gabe stressed.

Trissiny let the ensuing argument over elfish taxonomy pass over her, digging deep into her memory for a bit of officer training she'd received early on in her tenure as the Hand of Avei.

"-no such thing as  _ Ship Elves," _ Teal insisted.

"Point of order, the Drow of Nathloss are  _ totally _ Ship Elves," Ruda said.

"Enough," Trissiny said, cutting through the chatter. Five simple steps, drilled into her for a month. "Listen. Not one among us is truly a coward- Tellwyrn does not accept as students  _ anyone _ who is easily cowed into submission." A lie, but a believable one. "And that is a very good thing, because  _ out there _ are perhaps sixty centaurs, who would love nothing more than to demonstrate how good they are at torturing their foes to death." The truth, this time. "If we turn our backs to them, we  _ will _ die. But if we don't, if we stand and  _ fight, _ we will rid the world of a great evil, and return to Last Rock, as heroes, and  _ alive." _ Trissiny swept her gaze across all her classmates. "I will repeat myself: we, together, represent such a concentration of force as to give entire  _ armies _ pause. Those centaurs, as vicious as they may be, are  _ not _ a match for us, if we work together, and use this ravine to our advantage." And now for the big finish, for which she summoned her helmet, directly onto her head. "We can win here, or we can die. There is no other choice."

She didn't need to convince all of them with her speech; Teal was the coward Trissiny had to lie about, and Toby was a paladin of a pacifistic tradition. But Gabriel, Gabriel had something to prove, and Shaeine... well, at the very least, Shaeine could respect the craft of the speech. If either one changed their vote...

"...Fuck it," Gabe said. "I'm in. Not like it matters- you said you could hold that gap yourself if you wanted."

Trissiny grinned under her helmet; she was so happy she could've kissed him. Then she blinked, wondering exactly where the hell  _ that _ thought had come from. Goddess preserve her, she needed to go to town more often; Gabe and Toby being the only boys she saw with regularity was doing strange things to her.

"I'm not sure about this, kids," Rafe said. "I see where you're coming from, but  _ you're _ not the ones who'd have to answer to Taath K'varr about getting you killed."

"...Wait, who's a golden bitch?" Teal asked.

Ruda burst out laughing.

"You wanna put a cork in that, Punaji?" Rafe asked, planting his hands on his hips. "That's probably echoing all the way to-"

A heavy thudding noise filled the air, coming from above them, rhythmic and weighty, dislodging a fine misting of dust from the ceiling.

"War drums," Trissiny muttered.

"Fuck," Ruda whispered.

"Well, everyone," Trissiny said, drawing her sword and moving back into the doorway. "It looks like the choice of battle has been made  _ for _ us."


	16. Chapter 16

"Who here knows how to restrain someone with rope?" Trissiny asked.

"I do," Gabe said. "Dad's a soldier. Taught me a lot of little things like that."

"Anyone  _ besides _ Gabriel?"

"Why do you ask?" Ruda folded her arms.

"Centaur war drums cause bloodlust in demons," Trissiny said.

All eyes fell upon Gabe, who was hunching over. "...I'm fine."

"You will be, after we tie you up," Trissiny said. "A hethelax demon is not particularly  _ strong. _ So, if  _ anyone _ besides me or  _ Gabriel _ knows how to tie a man up, please take the rope from my pack so I don't have to leave my post."

"Yeah, yeah, I got it, don't give yourself a heart attack," Ruda muttered, walking over to Trissiny and digging in her pack. "Gabe, today's your lucky day. Lotta men would  _ kill _ to be tied up by the Punaji princess."

"I don't  _ feel _ very lucky," he said in a voice that was approaching a growl.

"That's a  _ you _ problem."

"Fross, Vadrieny," Trissiny said. "You two are our fliers. Do  _ either _ of you feel confident you could go up there, destroy their war drums, and come back without being injured?"

"Vadrieny is tough enough to take anything the centaurs can hand out," Teal said. "She doesn't have any ranged attacks, though."

"I have ranged attacks,  _ and _ I'm a pixie!" Fross said. "I'm a  _ really _ small target, and infernal magic can't hurt me!"

"Excellent," Trissiny said. "Now, if it looks like you're about to get hurt, just run and come back to us- don't worry about leading them here, we  _ want _ them to come and fight us down here. And you are  _ only _ supposed to destroy the war drums. If you miss and hit something else, that is fine, but do  _ not _ go haring off after targets of opportunity. Understand?"

"Only hit the war drums, run away if I'm in trouble, we want to fight them down here," Fross said, nodding. "Got it!"

"You have your orders. Dismissed."

* * *

_ So, Avatar, _ I "said" through my witchcraft senses as I traveled.  _ Was that it? You wanted to watch me kill someone and learn about a foreign culture? _

_ No, _ Avatar 09 said.  _ I wanted to see what your friends would do without you, if you'd made a significant impact. And you have. _

I grimaced.  _ Considering that last time, they made it through this by the skin of their teeth... _

_ You may want to hurry, _ Avatar 09 said.

* * *

Fross, it turned out, was very good at flinging shards of fae-infused ice through the membranes of big infernal war drums, and between the drumming coming to an unwilling end and Juniper sapping the hellfire out of Gabe, it took barely any time at all for him to be safe to untie.

"Okay, Juno, heads up? Next time,  _ untie _ the rope," Ruda said, scowling at the shreds. "We could've used that rope again."

"Relax, rope is cheap," Gabe said, rubbing at his wrists.

"Oh, really? I wasn't aware there was a merchant out here, Gabe. Mind pointing her out to me?"

"I don't know how to untie knots," Juniper said. "We don't really have a lot of manufactured goods in the Deep Wild."

"Teal, let Vadrieny out," Trissiny said, cutting through the chatter, keeping her eyes out on the ravine. "We need both fliers for this next step. Fross, you're our lookout- get up high and get eyes on the centaurs. If any of them try to lay an ambush, we're relying on you to spot it and warn us. Vadrieny, you're going to announce our presence more loudly, and herd them this way. Figure out if you're something they'll run from, and if you  _ are... _ we might be able to get out of this without fighting. But don't hold your breath. Do you both understand?"

"Eyes in the sky, watch for ambush," Fross said.

"Bring them here or scare them off," Vadrieny said.

"Excellent. Dismissed." Trissiny stepped aside, turning herself flat to permit Vadrieny to leave.

* * *

Tying a fae spirit to a physical object was a tradeoff. The spirit grew stronger still, but less flexible, and also, bound to a physical object rather than floating around its shaman or witch.

And, being a fae object, it somewhat objected to being stuffed into an arcane bag of holding. Oh, if you were an elf, then you could spend decades working on a fae bag of holding, and then carry around all the talismans you wanted.

I had a sneaking suspicion that fae magic's requirements that you learn to work with others and respect nature was only half the reason the elves loved it, and the other half was that only immortal elves who live for thousands of years could get particularly good at it.

"Ugh, fucking jangly piece of shit..." I muttered.

At any rate, the upshot of all this whining is that while, yes, binding the spirit of fear and flight into an elfish hunting horn made it more potent and, also, easier to use, it  _ also _ meant I had to  _ carry around _ an elfish hunting horn, and couldn't just stick it in a pocket dimension or else it might explode.

Sure hope the others are having a better time than I am...

* * *

Vadrieny was not having a good time right now.

It was supposed to be a simple mission: fly up, scream at the warlocks, try to scare them off, or otherwise try to lead them into an ambush. Given that she was an invincible flying archdemon, there was nothing to suggest that this would be particularly hard, let alone threatening.

But it turned out that warlocks, who worked with infernal magic and frequently summoned demonic thralls, had actually rather a lot of countermeasures for dealing with demons. And while Vadrieny was a particularly potent demon who even a Red Dragon would struggle to control, there was quite a lot more wiggle room between "completely ineffective" and "complete control" than there was between "a Red Dragon" and "five centaur warlocks."

Circles and chains of hellfire wrapped themselves around her. She was strong. She could resist it. But she could  _ not _ resist  _ and _ fight them at the same time. She was, for the moment, more or less locked down, barely able to take one step at a time, completely unable to fly.

She hoped Fross did something soon.

* * *

Fross kept a careful eye on the centaurs on the periphery; whatever the main mass was doing, Vadrieny could handle it.

* * *

One of the centaurs said something in Infernal that Vadrieny only just barely caught. "-by the tail."

"-any better ideas, otherwise-"

Hrm. So they didn't have a plan here. Interesting.

"-hope she doesn't-"

Doesn't  _ what? _ What could she  _ possibly _ do from here? She couldn't fly, or fight. She could breathe, but-

...Oh.

Vadrieny felt very dumb.

Then, she took in a deep, slow breath.

"Dammit, dammit, dammit-"

And  _ screamed. _

* * *

"Naphthene's tits, you okay?" Ruda asked, squatting down besides Gabe as he whimpered helplessly on the floor, curled up in obvious pain.

"Ow," Shaeine murmured, hands planted over her ears.

"Wow," Juniper said. "I had no idea she could be that  _ loud." _

* * *

Teal objected to violence, but only had a hard limit at killing. She would be  _ unhappy _ about broken legs, but could tolerate it... so long as nobody explained to her how horses worked.

Which, unfortunately, they already had.

_ This would be much easier if you were an Avenist, _ Vadrieny muttered, flying back into the ravine and screaming again, bellowing forth a challenge to the assembled centaurs and luring them into sword range of the Hand of Avei.

_ If I was an Avenist, I would've tried to kill you, _ Teal retorted.

* * *

Heavy infantry, in good order, was quite reasonably comparable to a meatgrinder; the only thing that could truly stand up to such was equally heavy infantry, in equally good order. Everything else had to rely on  _ disordering _ the heavy infantry beforehand, and as Trissiny was the Hand of Avei, holding a narrow stone doorway, it would take no less than a direct strike with heavy artillery, the sort that knocked down castle walls, to disorder her.

The stream of centaurs rushing her like lambs to the slaughter certainly weren't up to the task. It was almost like being a Stalweiss warlord fighting a Calderaan incursion, really. All she needed was to steal one of Horsebutt's axes and put on a fur hat.

* * *

"This, this is why we do not skimp on drills," the chieftain said, watching the least controlled of her number rush down into the ravine to their deaths. "These young souls... We will have to swallow our pride and return to the main horde. We cannot sustain ourselves after these losses."

"Surely we can-" one of the warlocks began.

"We  _ cannot," _ the chieftain snapped. "Much as it pains me... We run."

"I sense something," an elder warlock said, pointing and drawing everyone's attention. "Something arcane in the sky. Something of moderate strength... A wizard on a flying carpet, perhaps?"

"One wizard is  _ well _ within our ability to defeat," another warlock said.

"A wizard approaching us from the sky can unleash hell beyond our wildest dreams," the chieftain said. "We retreat. There is nothing worth dying for out here."

"No, we do  _ not _ retreat," a young warlock said. "We are  _ centaurs. _ And it is beneath our dignity to run from a foe  _ we outnumber." _

"I agree," another said.

"Your weakness shall be our ruin."

The chieftain found herself outvoted, and grimaced. At times, she questioned the wisdom of leading her people to a better life; few of them appreciated it, and even fewer seemed to deserve it. She shook the thought off; deserving or not, she would be their salvation, even if she had to drag them kicking and screaming.

"Enough," she began. "Listen to me carefully-"

The chieftain rarely enjoyed being interrupted, but sometimes... sometimes, it was alright.

* * *

I inhaled through my nose, not taking my lips off the hunting horn and being grateful I'd learned to play the trumpet, all those years ago, before sounding it again, sending a thick, deep boom of pure, animalistic  _ fear _ through the air.

I'm back, bitches. Didja miss me?


	17. Chapter 17

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this sat on my hard drive, complete, for like ten days.
> 
> i dont have an explanation.

Fear was largely unknown to centaurs. It was a favorite of Plains Elf shaman, who used it to great effect during surprise raids, but that was what made it so unknown; rare was the centaur who  _ survived _ a raid by Plains Elves.

This band of centaurs, consisting of five or so families, was marginally more experienced in it; their chieftain had found a way to inflict fear and flight through the infernal craft, and had tried to train her people to resist it, but she had only had so much time, and gotten so much cooperation.

And so when panic gripped them, they fled senselessly, in the straightest line away from the newcomer. Which, in three cases, ended up being "straight off the edge of a cliff."

The newcomer watched with satisfaction as the centaurs fled, and grinned as a glowball made of potent fae and arcane magics came flying towards her.

"ROSE!" Fross yelled. "Man am I glad to see  _ you!" _

"Good to see you too, little lightbulb," Rose said. "Let's go collect the groundwalkers and go home. I don't like this place anymore."

* * *

"Put that thing away, are you crazy?" I said as Trissiny climbed astride Arjen, my own feet firmly planted on the ground.. "You do  _ not _ bring horses, oxen, sheep, or  _ anything _ that eats grass into the Golden Sea. The Plains Elves barely tolerate us as it is."

"Hello, Rose, I missed you too," Trissiny said. "With all due respect-"

"If you don't have enough to share with the whole class," Rafe said, trailing off and planting his hands on his hips.

Trissiny groaned, and I felt slightly bad; I'd just been fucking with her, before Rafe continued the joke. Eh, whatever. She's a half-elf on top of an Avenist, she can tolerate a walk through the prairie better than anyone else here.

"Where'd you get that fucking horse from?" Ruda demanded.

"I-" Trissiny began, likely planning on giving an actual explanation.

"Oh, y'know," I said, interrupting her. "Around. Anyway, I don't know how long my mojo's gonna last before the centaurs come back, so let's maybe get a wiggle on. Time's a wastin', kiddos. Chop chop." I set off at a brisk stroll, brooking no further discussion.

"...Is it just me or is that girl insufferable?" Ruda asked quietly, but not quietly enough.

"It's not just you," I called over my shoulder.

* * *

"See, this right here is what I mean," I said as we approached the smoking wreckage of a pair of oxcarts, a few skeletonized oxen clearly visible. "Plains Elves do  _ not _ want your livestock on their land."

"Holy shit," Gabe muttered.

"These bodies didn't  _ rot _ into skeletons," Trissiny said. "There's still smoke, and they aren't half-buried..."

"Good eye! Yeah, the funny thing about surface elfs is that they have, in essence, bottomless stomachs," Rafe said. "Hell, it only would've taken  _ one _ brave to do this, but it was  _ probably _ more."

"And Tellwyrn just... lets us run out into the Golden Sea, tromping on these fuckers' lawns?" Ruda asked.

"Well,  _ we _ didn't bring oxcarts with us," Rafe said with a shrug.

"Why the hell do the Plains Elves care about cows?" Gabe asked. "Poaching the bisons, sure, but..."

"The bison, which is their primary food source, eats grass, which is a limited resource," Shaeine said. "Every blade of grass eaten by a cow is a blade of grass not feeding the bison, and therefore food being actively taken from people for whom subsistence is an ever-pressing concern."

"Good eye," I said. "I had to have that explained to me by a shaman, after I saved his little brother from getting killed by centaurs. So, Ruda, that's a  _ no _ to bringing our own horses on our next trip."

"Hang on," Teal said. "Plains Elves don't like people stealing their food, sure, but then why did Rafe make us forage for food in the Golden Sea?"

"Eh," Rafe said with a shrug. "They'll live, and so'll you little bastards. Now, who wants to loot the bodies?"

* * *

"So just to recap on what you said about carriages-" Ruda began.

"Child, I will leave you behind, don't think I won't," I said.

_ "-supposedly, _ they're too fragile and not robust enough. And  _ then, _ in  _ one fucking night, _ you turned  _ two broken wagons _ into fully-functional carriages that impress even  _ Falconer," _ Ruda said.

"Nothing I do is ever fucking good enough for you people, is it?" I said.

"It really is a clever design," Teal said. "It's like a belt of plates... It looks  _ great _ for traction. What do you call it?"

"Treads," I said flatly. "And yes, they're great for traction, but also for shock-absorption. They're a bit slower than wheels, but only if the wheels already have good shock absorption. As it stands, though..."

"As it stands, if you ever want a job at FI, I'll vouch for you," Teal said.

"Fuck, with that kinda financial security, I might as well drop out when we get back," I said. "Provided Arachne  _ lets _ me, which is... up in the air."

Blessed silence fell at last, letting my mind wander to all the beautiful, delicious locomotive technologies I had in my head due to growing up with ADHD hyperfixations and a man whose job skills involved knowing his way around cars.

* * *

"Well," Arachne said as the carriages emerged from the Golden Sea. She'd come down to greet them, having apparently been alerted ahead of time. "You're back early."

"Centaurs," Trissiny said tersely.

"That would do it, I suppose," Arachne admitted. "And... where exactly did these wagons come from?"

"I may have accidentally sicced the Yellow Stalks tribe on some bandits," Rose said, easing her wagon to a stop. "Hey, there's no polite way to ask this, but the bandits were skeletons, too, so..."

"No, elves typically do not eat human flesh," Arachne said. "Unicorns, on the other hand, will eat anything you feed them."

"Huh," Rose said. "I think I don't want anything to do with unicorns anymore."

"We  _ also _ found a small fortune in gems in the wagons," Ruda added.

"Not  _ that _ small," Shaeine corrected her.

"Well, congratulations, children," Arachne said. "Your reports are due tomorrow in class with me, but otherwise... get some rest. You seem to have earned it."

She turned around and set off up the mountain.

"So, here's my thinking," Rose said as Arachne left. "I'm gonna sell these wagons anyway, because I don't need them. If I put the proceeds of that into the pool for us to split up evenly, will anyone object to me laying claim to all the blue sapphires in the gems?"

"Rose, I understand this is important to you, but I  _ do not care," _ Trissiny said, climbing out the back of a wagon and stretching her legs. "Do what you will. I don't need money."

"Hey, Triss, if you don't care, can I have your share?" Gabe asked.

Trissiny looked at him and considered this carefully, helping him out of the wagon.

"No," Trissiny said finally.

"Oh come on! You've got the entire Cult of Avei to get resources from!" Gabe complained. "I had to get in on a scholarship!"

"Hang on,  _ you _ got a  _ scholarship?" _ Ruda asked.

"Gabe's smarter than he looks," Toby said.

"Yeah, and so's your average rock," Ruda said. "Not exactly an accomplishment."

"Man, fuck you guys," Gabe muttered.

"If you're done picking on Gabe-" Teal began.

"Never!" Ruda declared.

"-maybe we should get a move on and try getting some dinner before it's all gone," Teal said.

"I, for one, would like something to eat that isn't bison," Shaeine said.

"Hah! You kids are softer than a cat!" Rafe declared boisterously. "We were in there for  _ two days!" _

"...Gonna be honest, Rafe, kinda forgot you were there," Rose said. "Anyway, I agree with Teal. I'm gonna take these wagons up the ramp, so anyone who doesn't feel like taking the stairs, getting out is optional."

"Exercise is good for you," Trissiny said, shaking her head.

"I've had enough sitting in those things for now," Gabe said. "No offense, Rose."

"Eh, none taken," Rose said. "I didn't exactly have time to put in upholstery and throw pillows, after all. Anyway, five seconds for anyone who wants to walk to get out. Four, three, two, one... Catch y'all on the topside."

The wagons started off up the shallow, switchbacking ramps the mountain had for... not  _ quite _ exactly this purpose, but close enough to it. Rafe remained sprawled out in the back of the wagon Rose wasn't riding at the front of, but everyone else had seen fit to get out and stretch their legs.

"Soooo..." Ruda said. "...What the hell do we write in our report? The hell did we actually  _ learn?" _

"That Trissiny is a formally trained military officer with the relevant and expected vocational skills!" Fross said. "And just because we think she's wrong about  _ other _ stuff isn't any reason to not listen to her when it comes to a fight!"

"We also learned that sending demons to fight warlocks isn't as good an idea as it looked at first," Teal said, rubbing her upper arm.

"I'm sorry for that oversight, Teal, Vadrieny," Trissiny said, nodding her head and patting the bard on the shoulder. "I should've known better."

"Hey, I lived," Teal said, looking away and switching her hand to rub at the back of her neck.

"We also learned that wizards are total bullshit, and Plains Elves are scary," Gabe said.

"I've learned that I like bison more than beef," Toby said. "It's a touch sweeter- not gamey at all." He shrugged as everyone turned to look at him. "What? You guys already hit all the high notes."

"Right, well. If nobody objects... Onwards to cooked food," Trissiny said, starting her march.

"See, I think I actually like how beef isn't as sweet," Juniper said as the group followed after her. "It's a bit heavier, too. I'm not really a picky eater, but-"

* * *

"So, what'd we miss?" I asked as I parked the wagons in a spot Arachne pointed out to me.

"Eh," Arachne said with a shrug. "Nothing ever happens in this town."


End file.
